Undesirable Truth
by Diest1st
Summary: One of Dr. Eggman's minions finds it hard to take orders after Sonic is introduce to her life as a prisoner she has to watch over at all costs. As she slowly realizes that the things she was told about her past don't add up, she's given an order she cannot commit and goes rogue. In saving Sonic from a fate she also suffered, she learns to cope with an undesirable truth.
1. Chapter 1

_Was my name ever written down?_

Good Morning, my name is Cat. Yes, it's a stupid name I know, but it's what the doctor had called me and honestly, it's a fine enough place-holder until I remember my real name. I can't remember anything about my life

before I got here. The doctor told me I was living on the streets before he took me in. It seemed reasonable enough, but then why couldn't I remember? It's been a couple years since then, I had done my best to repay the doctor's kindness, but sometimes he still scared me. I happen to also be a cat.

The doctor recently captured an enemy of his, a hedgehog named Sonic. I had been tasked with the security of the newcomer's prison as well as interrogation. The doctor wanted to know where the rest of the chaos emeralds were. I don't exactly know what chaos emeralds are or why they are so important but I was never brave enough to ask. Nevertheless, I took good care of Sonic. I made sure he was given enough food and water to survive comfortably and I didn't allow anyone other than myself to interrogate him. I didn't call my interrogations anything more than talks. That's really all that they were to me. I finally had someone there that was my age, someone that is of my nature, to talk to. Someone to finally relate to. I knew I shouldn't have thought of Sonic as a friend, but I often wished that he would just switch sides and work alongside me. I had often tried to persuade him to do so.

The doctor wanted me to be more forceful in my interrogations but I just didn't have it in me. He wanted me to start using torture and I staunchly refused. I had never made refusals before. I was always too afraid to say anything contrary. Talking with Sonic had changed me for the better. In my conversations with him, I was never talked at, but always spoken to. We were equals.

One day I had been called into the doctor's office, I almost never saw him in person at that point so it meant the reason for the meeting was important. It made me nervous to say the least. It was a fair bet to assume he would take Sonic away from me. He said I had been "catching an attitude" ever since Sonic arrived. But it hadn't been an attitude, I tried to be respectful but there were some things that he'd asked me to do that are too much for me to go through with. On my way to the office, I approached my least favorite door. The facility was very large, and I had been in every room except for that one. I was not allowed in that room, its door was always locked and just looking at it sent shivers down my spine. There was something eerily familiar about it and yet I couldn't understand why. Sometimes if I stared at it long enough, I got echoes of memories and a voice in the back of my mind telling me to run. I tried not to look at it as I passed by.

Upon entering the office, I was greeted by the old man himself, he asked me to take a seat. This was bad. Just as I had suspected, he was taking Sonic away. He said Sonic had been a bad influence on my behavior and that he would be taking Sonic into his charge instead. This twisted my stomach in a knot, even though the doctor had been generous with me, I knew he wouldn't be so forgiving to Sonic. I did my best to promise more information if he just gave me more time to work with. I promised I would work harder to get what he needed but then he stopped me cold.

"You've done enough. Just quiet down and let me work!"

That turned my blood to ice. I had heard that before, long ago in a much scarier part of my life. Without a word I walked out of his office and retired early. This encounter had shaken me to my core. I couldn't do anything but sit on my cot and think about what he had said, why it affected me so much, where those feelings came from and what exactly was behind that door I hated so much.

When I finally gave up on trying to sleep, I checked the clock, it was 3 AM. It was time to find out at least one answer to my many questions. In the hallway I had walked through many times, the mystery door was locked as always. It only took a three-digit code to open it and I happened to know of one already, I had to use it if I ever wanted to open the fridge after 8 PM. I worked many late hours, so this was an often occasion. I punched in 366 and the door opened to a room full of cold, stale air. I didn't know what I was expecting, for the longest time I just stood there in the open doorway, wondering whether I should go in. After a deep breath, I stepped inside and immediately had my breath stolen from me. Even in the dark I could recognize what was a picture of myself on the counter. It was paper-clipped to a file. I opened to read the contents and was greeted with the picture of a human woman about my age stapled to a lab report. She looked… Familiar. My hands were inexplicably shaking, and my mind kept repeating _I shouldn't be in here!_

I made the mistake of switching on the lights so to could read the report. As soon as the lights flickered on, I got a view of the testing chamber beyond the desk. Memories flooded back to me, memories of being in this room, being tied down to the operating table. The burning underneath my skin and the feeling of my bones breaking and knocking back together all on their own. With the old memories returning so vividly my vision started to darken around the edges, everything was shaking now. My head was spinning and the air that was so cold was now pressing in and suffocating me. It was hard to breathe. It was hard to stand. Slowly, I collapsed and rested on the ground. I may have blacked out at that point.

After a while, I was able to piece myself back together. At least enough so I could make it back to my room while doing my best not to make any noise or to cry out; there was nothing I could do to stop the tears streaming out. My room had always been a safe place for me to breathe out and release some of the tensions I felt on the job. But even now, there was nothing this safety could do for me. After lying in bed for about an hour or so, I looked at the file that I had mistakenly taken with me. My hand had such a tight grip on it, but I couldn't bring myself to read the report. I remembered I was human, I had a home, he took me from my home. I was made… into this. Was my name ever written down? There was a sticky note on the outside of the file: "Possibility of repeated result in reverse"

He was going to do this to Sonic!

Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Undesirable Truth, Part 2**

I had to do something! I couldn't let him hurt my friend like this! I wrapped up what little of my belongings I had in the blanket of my bed and charged out toward my new mission. I wasn't sure if Sonic really did consider me an honest person or if he would let me go with him after he escaped but setting him free was the right thing to do. It didn't matter what happened to me in the end anyway. I was already shattered. What more could be done?

After sneaking through security camera blind spots and shutting down robot guards, I arrived at Sonic's cell and prayed the security code hadn't been changed yet. When the door opened, he looked just as surprised as I was.

"What's this all about?" Sonic asked as he stretched out his legs. It appeared that I had just woken him up.

"Keep your voice down," I replied, "I'm getting you out of here!"

It was obvious that he didn't believe me, but he got up anyway.

"Finally! I've been dying for a run!" He said stretching his arms and not at all keeping his voice down like I had told him. This was disheartening, he wasn't taking me seriously at all!

"Ssh! Do you want him to find out?" I warned. I saw something out of the corner of my eye and my heart jumped, I turned my head quickly to see who had followed me. Ah, it was just my tail… Right.

"You're really serious about this, huh?" He asked as he walked out of the cell to look around. All the guards were shut down and idle. "Alright, I'll play your game. Which way is out?"

"Follow me!" I said.

I carefully led him through all the blind-spots, past all the inactive guards and guided him around trigger areas for traps like it was a breeze. I couldn't help but notice just how good he was at all this. Perhaps it was because he had a lot of practice. I was breathing very easily until the lights flashed on and the prisoner escape sirens started blaring. In panic, I couldn't remember whether to breathe in or out, my fur was standing on end and the ringing in my ears matched the dance routine my heart was performing. I thought for sure Sonic assumed I had just set him up. But he didn't seem bothered at all, in fact he looked excited for the challenge.

"Looks like old egghead figured out your plan!" He said. "I can get us to the exit fast if you show me the way."

He opened his arms as an offer to… Carry me? I must've looked incredulous because he started to assure me.

"Don't worry, I can carry you and still keep up my speed. You want to get out of here don't you?" He asked.

I nodded.

"Then we'd better get moving! Ready?"

The experience of being carried wasn't as awkward as I had thought it would be. And just like he said, we were at the exit very quickly. He set me down and stood ready to fight off whatever came our way while I hurriedly opened the door. There was no pin input for this but a card reader instead. I had mine on me but no matter how many times I slid the card through it would not open the door. My hands were shaking so extensively and I was so frantic that I almost snapped the card in half.

"What's the hold up?" Sonic shouted as a squad of robots started their way toward us.

"My card isn't working! He must've restricted my access!" I cried.

"Looks like we'll have to find another way out." He stated. How could he have been so calm?

I racked my brain for other avenues, maybe there was a window or a hatch to slip out of? No good, under a red alert everything was locked down. Nothing was left open, not even the inner doors, except for maybe the escape pods. Even in an emergency like this the doctor always had an escape route for himself ready.

"I know where to go!" I exclaimed.

"Right!" Sonic answered. He was making quick work of the security that was sent after us, he gave the last standing automaton one solid kick and scooped me up. I pointed out where to go and we were off like a rocket.

It took some time to get to the escape route, it was on the other side of the building and with every new hallway we passed through, we were hit by wave after wave of opposition. I could see it was wearing Sonic down. I wanted to help somehow. We were about to turn a corner when I remembered something.

"Wait!"

Sonic screeched to a halt.

"What? Did you see something?" He asked.

I hopped down from his arms and started pulling at the metal panels on the walls and floors.

"I think there's another way we can get to where we're going!" I answered.

"Sounds like a plan to me!" He replied.

With the two of us looking for a lose panel, we quickly popped one off the wall and slipped inside. I did my best to pull the cover back on to make our escape undetectable.

Once inside and awkwardly pressed between steel walls, Sonic looked to me.

"You couldn't have thought of this _before_?" He criticized.

"Aw, come on!" I retorted, "It's not like I planned all this in advance! I actually didn't expect us to get this far."

"Of course we got this far! You're with me, remember? How'd you know about this anyway?" He asked.

"I remembered there was an electrical short here once. The doctor had me pry it open and crawl in to fix it. He talked me through the steps while he waited outside. Called it a 'teachable moment' whatever _that _means…" I said.

"Huh, sounds like him…" Sonic replied.

We shimmied our way through the walls which were surprisingly cobweb free to my relief. When we reached a corner, we had to duck down and crawl underneath the flooring, which was also hollow.

"Even the floor is hollow?" Sonic asked.

"The spaces behind the walls are supposed to go on through the entire building. So yeah, even the floors." I answered.

"Why's that?"

"I think at some point he wanted to add spike traps and stuff but I caught a cold so he had to postpone the installations and I never reminded him when I got better."

He chuckled, "Seems like I'm not the only one eager to get out of here then."

"You have no idea."

. . .

Thank you for reading, Part 3 will be posted tomorrow

I would like to especially thank Dowser10 for the encouragement! :D


	3. Chapter 3

**Undesirable Truth, Part 3**

We had to travel the rest of our adventure through the walls and floors in silence as to keep ourselves from being detected. It was a tense situation, especially when we could hear the trod of metal feet passing us by. In one of our many silent moments of concentration, Sonic whispered another question.

"Why didn't you leave earlier? Did he keep you prisoner too?"

It took me a while to find the words I was looking for.

"No… I wasn't. I didn't ask questions. I was afraid."

"Afraid of what? With all the stuff you know, it's not like you'd get caught."

I hesitated, I wasn't ready to say it out loud.

"Oh, I get it." He said and batted his eyelashes, "You were afraid of leaving me behind~!"

I snickered and nudged at his arm.

"More like you drove me out!" I retorted, "Ever since you showed up the whole place has been all about you. I almost thought the doctor had a crush on you."

"Stop! Thinking about it weirds me out!" He shook his head as if to clear it from the very notion, "Why do you call him a doctor anyway? The only PhD he's got is in being a total moron."

"Well… He.. told me to call him that." My mood was starting to sink again, why I had been so influenced by a man that took everything away from me?

"Well that's changing. From now on its Eggbutt or Baldy McNosehair and that's it!"

I nearly burst out laughing and lost our cover, "Baldy Mc-What?"

"I'm serious! That's what we call him! It's way better that way."

"You have to stop! Or we're going back to jail!" I warned through barely contained laughter.

"You're the one laughing, not me. I'm always serious." He countered.

We continued to shuffle our way underneath the floors when the pressure of metallic feet pushed against our backs. Sonic wanted to press forward but I stymied him, worried that it would give us away.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T FIND THEM?" We heard a voice shout from above the floors. I recognized it as the doctor's voice immediately.

"I DON'T CARE IF YOU HAVE TO TEAR THIS ENTIRE FACILITY APART! YOU'D BETTER FIND THEM OR YOU'RE GOING IN THE SCRAP HEAP, DO YOU HEAR ME!"

All the memories I had been swallowing down were bubbling up again, I couldn't control the shaking. The image of the lab came back to me, I remembered the feeling of my bones grinding against each other and my skin splitting open to make way for new appendages. My vision was getting dark around the edges and the air felt hot until I felt the press of Sonic's hand on my shoulder.

"It's okay, you're safe with me." He whispered.

I took a couple of deep breaths to try calming down.

"I don't know what exactly you're so scared of but I promise I'll get you out of here. You just have to hold on until then, okay? Think you can do that?"

I nodded. His eyes seemed focused as they searched mine for understanding, or some hint to my story.

"Okay, let's keep going. Don't worry about them, there's no way they'll find us. Just follow me."

We slowly started moving again. Just one small crawl forward after another while the party above was chattering on. It took me a while to get my bearings again but we finally reached the escape pod station. It was there that we were met with another dilemma.

"So… How do we get out into the room?" Sonic asked.

After I wriggled up next to him and took a couple more deep breaths to clear my head, I looked up at the flooring above us for another panel, then to the sides of the room to see if there were any visible exits. I turned to face him, he had an expectant look on his face. I seemed to be the expert of this situation. After all, I got us back here, I should be able to get us out. I blinked then spoke.

"I have no idea."

He rolled his eyes and started to laugh, "Right. You didn't think this far ahead."

"Cut me some slack! Do _you_ think this far in _your_ escape plans?"

"Not usually." He finally got a handle on his laughter.

"There, see! I'm sure we can find an opening in a wall panel somewhere if we just look."

I started to shuffle onward when we heard the door to the room close, Sonic and I both were tense in waiting. We listened closely. I hoped they hadn't figured out we were here yet. I could hardly hear anything over the pounding in my ears. Was my heart beating that loudly? Would it be heard through the walls? I held my breath. Then two tones reverberated through the room.

"AR-C0"

My blood ran cold.

Sonic started to ask, "What's-?"

"It's Metal!" I whispered, "He sent Metal after us!"

I was starting to shake again.

"AR-C0" pinged out again, this time a little closer. I was sweating bullets.

"What's he doing?" Sonic asked.

"He's playing hide and seek - I used to play it with him before meeting you. He… he always found me."

"…Would you hide in the walls?"

"N-no..."

"So, he won't find us."

"AR-C0" rang just a few feet away from where we were hiding. Sonic took the initiative to start moving again. He found a bend where the empty space in the floor met with the empty space in the walls and crawled in. I followed after.

"AR-C0"

"Is he saying… Marco?" Sonic whispered.

"Yes, I taught him to call out Marco when he was searching and Polo for when he was hiding. It made things easier."

"So, he thinks he's playing hide and seek?" Sonic asked as he helped me up from the floor.

"No…" I stood up and pressed my back against the wall. "He's mocking me."

"AR-C0"

Metal Sonic crashed his arm through the sheet metal and into our hiding place. His fist landed just above my head and I screamed. His glowing red eye shone through the hole his fist left behind. It stared directly at me as both his hands took hold of the torn steel and pried the wall open.

Sonic was quick to get in Metal's way. He pushed against the wall behind us and shoved himself into Metal knocking him off balance and out of the way. I scrambled out of the hole as Sonic battled his robot counterpart. I knew I was his target since I was the weakest in the group. Metal liked to tie loose ends quickly.

"Get going!" Sonic called out, "Run! I'm right behind you!"

I started to run, I had the urge to look back and make sure Sonic was doing okay, but didn't get the chance. Before I could look, Metal caught up to me and blocked my way.

"P0-L0"

He reached to grab me. I nearly dodged his hand but he was faster and caught my arm. During that exchange, Sonic spin-dashed into Metal's back, latched on and pulled at his arm to pry his cold hard fingers from my forearm. Metal yanked me along with him toward the door all the while swiping at Sonic with his free hand. Sonic was quick in evading his assaults. I knew Sonic would stand a better chance against Metal if I at least did something. I used Metal's grip on my arm to our advantage and pulled him off balance.

Sonic pushed off of Metal's back to give him the additional push needed to topple him over then spin-dashed him into the ground. He had to let go of my arm by that point.

"Which way is out?" Sonic asked.

I pointed to the escape pods. He shook his head.

"Nuh-uh, too slow. Anything else?"

I thought for a bit.

"The ejection doors! If we can force them open, we'll be out!"

"Leave it to me!"

Sonic whistled to Metal as he was standing up from Sonic's attack. He was quick to lock eyes with his opponent. Sonic started to taunt Metal with a series of jeers and funny faces, much to my astonishment. I would never dare to do such a thing and I sincerely hoped that my friend knew what he was getting himself into.

Metal certainly did not take kindly to Sonic's challenge and flew at him full force. Before I knew it, Sonic had me in his arms again and started running toward the ejection doors. Was he going to try running into the doors full force? Metal Sonic was right on our tails. This could only end in disaster! I watched as the doors came closer and closer. We were just a couple of feet from the door. I shut my eyes tight and awaited the smack of the door against my face. Sonic ducked and I heard a loud crash ahead of us.

I dared to look and saw the doors blasted open with Metal Sonic just beyond them, broken and in inoperable shape. At first my laughter was of disbelief, then relief, then of shear elation. I couldn't believe we survived Metal Sonic's attacks.

"Not bad, huh?" Sonic asked.

"Not bad? We're free! Let's get out of here!"

I jumped out of Sonic's arms and started running out of the base, I half expected a snide remark about my running speed but at that point I didn't care. For the first time in my life I didn't care what anyone else thought, I was my own person. I ran as far as my legs had strength to take me, out into the night with Sonic casually following beside. With the base disappearing from sight and the new world wrapping itself around me, I took a moment to breathe and take in what this freedom felt like.

For the first time ever, I looked up and saw the night sky. With all the stars glistening brightly and the moon shining comforting rays of soft light, I inhaled deeply and breathed in the first lung full of fresh air I've ever had. The cool night breeze swept around me as I fell to my knees and let a few held back tears slip out quietly. This was the freest I've ever felt. This was the realest anything has ever felt. My life was mine again. As the realization washed over me the tears multiplied and I couldn't keep them from showing.

Sonic watched me take it all in, I knew he was wondering why I was crying instead of shouting for joy.

"Look, um…" He said, "I don't know what happened to you in there, and you don't need to tell me if you're not ready… But you're not alone anymore."

I turned to him and tried to explain but the wavering in my voice distorted everything I said, and honestly, I didn't know what to say or where to start. I knew I needed to tell him, after all this time guarding him as a prisoner and not being able to answer anything he ever asked me, I at least owed him this. In addition, he was my friend, he risked his freedom and his life for me in our escape. As _his_ friend I needed to at least let him to know who I was. A failed experiment.

I handed him the file I had taken from the lab that ruined me in hopes of giving him the answer he was looking for. While his eyes scanned the pages, his facial expressions changed from confusion, to alarm, then to compassion. When he finished reading, he took a seat in front of me and hugged me tight. I started to sob into his shoulder.

"You're not alone. You can come with me and stay as long as you like, I'll even introduce you to all my friends, if you want."

I hugged him back, it was the only response I could muster.

. . .

Thank you for reading!

Part 4 will be out next week :D


	4. Chapter 4

**Undesirable Truth, Part 4**

It took me a little while to calm down. As I was drying my eyes, Sonic handed me his handkerchief.

"If you're ready, we can get going?" He offered.

I accepted his offer and we started walking toward his home. It was a long but easy walk as the sun slowly started to rise over the horizon. Everything grew brighter and friendlier as the sun rose higher and higher. I found myself smiling again. By mid-morning we arrived at a little hut by the beach. The yellow and blue paint on the walls was faded and cracking but the place looked very cozy. Before we could reach the house, a yellow fox ran out and rushed toward us.

"Sonic!" He called, "I knew you'd be back soon!"

He tackled Sonic with a hug and it seemed as though he wouldn't be letting go any time soon.

"Where were you?" The boy asked.

"Heh, well, I ran into a little trouble with Eggman. But Cat saved me!" Sonic motioned to me and sent me a quick wink.

I would have hardly called our escape anything like me saving him, in my eyes it was the other way around. But the fox kit seemed very interested. I bashfully averted my eyes. And tried to reply.

"Well, I wouldn't exactly…"

"Oh yeah!" Sonic interrupted, "And she even carried me all the way here!"

"What!? No!"

The boy laughed, "How did you lose enough weight for that to happen?"

"Hey! Just because you can't handle lifting me of the ground doesn't mean everyone else has the same problem!"

"Sure." The young one rolled his eyes with a smirk.

Who was this sassy child? And when could I adopt him?

"My name is Tails, by the way." He said.

Finally, I had his name!

"Tails," I said, "you and me, we're best friends now."

Tails shrugged, "Alright."

Sonic laughed, "That was easy."

After they led me inside, I took a seat in their tiny kitchen while Sonic filled Tails in on the time they had spent apart. That included me guarding Sonic as a prisoner and our 'grand' escape from Eggman and Metal Sonic. Thankfully he kept out the part about my past. Tails nodded as he listened, his little face shown his focus on retaining all details. As Tails was filling Sonic in on what he had missed, my eyes drifted around admiring their house. The bright yellow tiles on the kitchen counter, the light wooden cabinets, the pale gray linoleum flooring, and the pastel blue walls throughout the house. Beyond the kitchen was a little living room with a heavily worn out couch with an overabundance of pillows, a just as worn hammock and a small tv set from the 90's. I did notice a few other smaller contraptions and tools around the place but I assumed they were just common place items that I had no memory of. It all looked so cozy.

Sunlight was pouring into the kitchen from the window behind me, bathing the whole room in warm light and heating my back in the process. It all felt so safe and relaxing that I nearly fell asleep with my face on the table top. Tails seemed to notice my drowsiness.

"Oh, hey! Are you tired?" He asked.

Sonic stretched his back and chuckled at my posture.

"I'm pretty beat too. It's time for a nap."

I hadn't really slept in a bed in years, all I had was a temporary cot back at Eggman's base. Imagine my surprise when Sonic insisted that he give me his bed to rest. I wanted to refuse but he just went along with his suggestion anyway and started sleeping in the hammock in the living room. Try as I might to persuade him, he just turned over and pretended to already be asleep. I looked to Tails for guidance.

"Just take the bed." He said with a shrug.

I hadn't even seen a bed in so long. Had I been well rested, I probably would've taken much more opposition to accepting this much hospitality and to the amount of little blue spines and hairs all over the blankets that were left unmade. No wonder he offered, he probably didn't want to sleep in this either. Against my better judgement, I pretended not to notice any of it as I uncomfortably settled in. As I did so, my eyes closed all on their own. One of the last things I noticed before my mind started drifting was how much the sheets smelled like him and that maybe the bed wasn't as cushy as I had expected. However, this didn't stop me from falling asleep within the next two seconds.

By the time I had woken up it was late in the afternoon. My eyelids felt heavy and my mind groggy as I forced myself to sit up and out of my resting place. From the living room, I could hear Sonic and Tails in the middle of a conversation:

"Maybe it's not so good an idea that she meets Amy…" Sonic said.

"Why not?" Tails asked.

"Well- I mean- you know how she gets…"

I decided to step in and ask what all the fuss was about.

"How does she get?" I asked.

"Amy's craaaazy about him." Tails cleared up.

"It's not like that! It's just- "

"Oh! You have a _girlfriend_~?" I teased.

"She's **not** my _girlfriend_!"

"Yeah, that means she's **definitely** your girlfriend! Don't worry, I'll keep my distance from now on!"

"Now hold on just a sec!"

"Friendship with Sonic has ended, now Tails is my new best friend! Right, Tails?"

"Mm-hm!" Tails replied.

Sonic face-palmed then glared at Tails between his fingers, "Traitor…"

Much to Sonic's hesitation, it was agreed that Amy should visit. The vote was two against one anyway. But before Tails could call her to invite her over, Sonic caught sight of one of his shed spines in my fur and plucked it out to inspect it.

"If Amy sees one of these on you, she'll whack me into next week. We probably both reek of eggbase anyway. So, before we call her over, we gotta clean up."

"Oh, thank chaos!" Tails snarked and held his nose, "I was trying my hardest not to say anything."

Sonic squinted his eyes at the young fox, "Hey! You gotta clean up too! I don't remember saying anything about leaving your inventions all over the house when I was gone."

Tails groaned and went to pick up all the little contraptions that I was now glad to know were not household items that I never knew about.

Sonic went and showered first as I helped Tails clean up the house. He showed me what all his inventions did and I was quite impressed. He even tricked out a Roomba to clean the walls. When Sonic came back, he handed me a clean towel and a new bar of soap and said,

"Okay, it's all yours! I'll try to find you some clean clothes to borrow while you're in there."

"Um, how long?" I asked with borrowed towel and soap in hand.

"...'how long' what?" Sonic asked.

"Am I allowed to use the water?"

"As… long as you want?"

"Really?"

"Um, yeah! Were you really not allowed to use the water back in that base?"

"I was only allowed five minutes…"

"Wow… let me guess, the water was cold too, huh?"

I nodded.

Sonic inhaled deeply and set his hands on my shoulders.

"Tell you what, take as long as you want. You can even use up all of the hot water. I owe you this one."

I almost cried.

In the shower, the water was so scalding it stung my skin underneath my fur but it was such a good burn. I didn't even care if my skin was melting off because at least all my worries were melting off with it. I stood there letting the water hit my back for about 15 minutes before I remembered what I was actually in there for. As I washed up, I thought back on the old showers I used to take. In five minutes, I used to rush to lather soap and water all over before rinsing it off with what could only be described as ice water. But this, this was heaven. My thoughts kept drifting to my days back in the base, when Sonic was first introduced into my life. I saw him as a responsibility and a chance to make the doctor proud of me or at least appreciative of my efforts.

At first, we knew each other as enemies and yet, he spoke to me as though we were peers. When he snarked, I snarked back. I actually looked forward to our conversations because that was the only time during the day that I could unload all of my sass. And the more I did that, the more he seemed to like my company as well. When it came time for me to interrogate him, we were already on a first name basis. That first interrogation, I was very nervous to speak to him in the same room, all our previous conversations were either through bars or intercom. When I entered the room, I remember having to rush right back out because Eggman, no matter how genius he thinks he is, forgot to put a shower in Sonic's cell.

Poor Sonic had been in that room for two weeks without anything for hygiene, and it took me an extra week of repeated complaining to finally get a response. The end result was a big metal wash basin and a bar of soap. Nothing else. I was appalled but we made due, I fashioned some old blueprints and a wire frame to work as a screen. I knew Eggman would be angry, and he was, but I stood my ground and stipulated that even though Sonic was prisoner, he was still entitled to privacy in regards to his basic hygienic needs. Now I look back on those days with a chuckle at how I would try to hurry him and how he'd tease me with loud humming and whistling. In the end, I worked hard to get him the basic necessities he needed and I treated him with respect. I suppose that's what Sonic meant when he said he owed me this shower…

Upon finishing my shower and drying off, I found some clean clothes hanging on the outside door knob of the bathroom door. Just as Sonic had promised. These new clothes were baggy on me which was a drastic change from my uniform, that was no surprise considering how much taller Sonic was than me. The clothes consisted of a plain white t-shirt and a pair of cargo pants. The fabric that the shirt was made of was much softer, lighter and easier to move in than my uniform. I hypothesized that this shirt went unworn for quite some time since there were stubborn wrinkles in it from being folded in a drawer. The cargo pants were a bit of a challenge to put on, they were too big to sit at my waist like I wanted and instead rested loosely on my hips. I made a mental note to ask Sonic for a belt to borrow if he had one. After putting on the new clothes, I took a look in the mirror and was surprised to see how plain looking I was. My eyes got used to seeing the bright blue and yellow furs of my friends but mine was such a muddy brown all over. There was nothing remarkable about me. If I wasn't careful, my friends could easily lose me in a crowd of three people.

When I stepped out in the living room to meet the bright smiles of my friends, all my insecurities melted away. At least a small brown nobody like me could find accepting friends like them. And so far, that's all that mattered. There was also a new person in the room, a pink hedgehog who seemed very attached to Sonic. He introduced us.

"Cat, this is Amy. Amy this is Cat."

Amy did not seem keen to meet me at first, no doubt here to scope out her potential rival in hopes of defending her territory. This was soon cleared up.

"Oh, she's so pretty~!" I remarked with a smirk at Sonic, "No wonder she's your **_girlfriend_**!"

"Please don't say the 'G' word!" Sonic groaned.

Amy's eyes seemed to light up after that.

"Finally, someone with sense!" she exclaimed and took me aside to get better acquainted.

It didn't take long for Amy to sweep me up in a shopping trip to help me find clothes that actually fit. Her generosity rivaled Sonic's and it nearly beat his out as we went from shop to shop looking for items that suited my size. Not that Amy was on the sidelines that whole time, she found a few things for herself as well. I was amazed at all the small shops, the variety of people walking around, and all items available for purchase. When I was hidden away, I never thought there would be so much color and liveliness in the world. Everything was so bright and happy. When I looked at all the shop fronts and the clothes on display, I was met with a crippling sensory overload. I hoped Amy wouldn't notice though my face must have tipped her off.

"Why don't we take a break for a little bit?" Amy suggested.

"N-no! It's okay! I can-! I mean…" I took a breath and returned her glance. Back in the eggbase, I had to fight for my tasks. If it was obvious that I couldn't do it or if I struggled with it for too long, I'd get stuck with an easier but unpleasant job instead. I had to remind myself that I wasn't there anymore.

"Thanks Amy, it's just really hard to pick one thing." I admitted.

She seemed to understand.

"How about I show you my favorite place? Then we'll try to find your style and work from there?"

"My…style?" The thought of an individual look for myself was exciting but also daunting.

As we were heading to the shop, we caught the eyes of a couple passers-by. Thankfully Amy was quick to give them a glare to let them know we were off limits. Perhaps I wasn't so plain-Jane after all.

In the shop, there were a large amount of dresses on sale. I didn't take much interest in them, I liked pants better. They were easier to work in. Of course, that brought up the question if I was going to work at all in this new life I was making for myself. I tried to push that out of my mind, now was not the time to think about that. I gravitated toward the pants rack in the back while Amy busied herself with the dresses. I picked up a pair of black pants that vaguely reminded me of the old ones I used to wear. The fabric was of much better quality and somehow it made me angry that even in this small shop they had much better materials than what I was given for all of my remembered life. Before I could dwell on that longer my eyes drifted toward a light blue button-down short sleeved shirt. I couldn't get it in my hands soon enough!

One thing led to another and I had a whole arm full of shirts just like it. Amy looked over and started to laugh.

"So that's what you like! Here, let me help you pick out some things to match."

By the end, I had a pair of navy-blue slacks, a belt to hold them up, black heels, that button-down shirt that I liked so much and a little vest to match my pants. I looked swanky and I liked it! Amy was apprehensive about my self-fashioned outfit but she did admit it was cute. On our way home I determined that I needed to repay Amy's kindness any way I could as soon as I was able.

The next day, Sonic invited me to look around town. Amy and Tails joined us and I was introduced to a lot of Sonic's friends. There was Silver who was from the future and Blaze who was a princess from another dimension? I couldn't tell if Sonic was joking or not when he told me that. But there was also, Vector and his friends Espio and Charmy, they ran a detective agency. Something that interested me a great deal, I thought that maybe I could work for them if they were hiring. There was also Rouge who ran a night club who actually did offer me a job, but considering the atmosphere of the whole night club scene I was more than hesitant to take her up on that offer. She mentioned someone named Shadow whom I was also supposed to meet but he was "away on a job". I suppose he didn't work for Rouge. I met Big the cat, who wasn't much for talking but he seemed really nice.

By midafternoon I was exhausted from meeting so many people so we went back to Sonic's place to rest but there was someone there waiting for us. It was Sonic's friend Knuckles. Needless to say, this 'friend' Knuckles did not take a very keen liking to me. Somehow, he found out about where I had come from and was here to scare me off.

"How can you be sure she isn't a double agent working for Eggman?" He questioned, eyeing me suspiciously.

Sonic, to my ire, was not taking this seriously.

"It's cuz she's so small! Nothing this tiny could be evil! Right, Tiny?" He said and used the top of my head as an armrest just to prove his point.

I was not amused.

"Tiny or not! I don't trust her! Are you sure she didn't just brainwash you into thinking she's harmless?" The red one exclaimed. He leaned in so he could get a close look at my face. He was a very intimidating echidna. "Just admit who you are and I'll let you walk away."

By then I was furious, how dare this person question my friendship with Sonic as if I'm only here for my own gains! But what was I here for? And no matter how much I hated it, this guy had a point. Who was I? I was the interloper here. The one out of place in search for a new one, but how could I find my new place in the world if I wasn't sure who I was? I needed some time to think.

"I'll let you know who I am as soon as she shows up, bud." I walked away toward the beach to clear my head. I suppose he was just asking all these questions to determine my worth but I just couldn't handle it that day. The past events that led me here were still raw and I needed some more time to create the emotional space I needed in order to explore them for answers. Maybe in looking back I would find myself.

I sat on the beach and watched the waves roll up and fall backward over and over. I didn't like the beach. It was too messy, but it was at least calming to watch at a distance. My mind mulled over the question of who I was over and over but the answer "a failed experiment" just didn't satisfy. I knew there was more to me than my past and where I came from. But trying to find the image I had of myself was even more discouraging. All that came up was that plain little cat in the mirror. The one who'd be lost forever if you took your eyes off her just once. I knew what I liked and what I didn't like, but that wasn't enough to determine a personality. I looked up at the sky, there were seagulls flying overhead and playing with each other. What would it take for me to be that care free?

Sonic walked over and took a seat next to me in the sand. He was humming something. I didn't pay much mind to him, I just watched the seagulls dive at the water and fly back up.

"Don't let that knucklehead get you down. He's just a stubborn poor judge of character. But he'll come around." He said.

"You sure? He seems pretty dead-set on hating me."

"Just give him the stink-eye and he'll leave you alone, he's afraid of girls anyway. But if he keeps bothering you just leave him to me, I'll set him straight." He sent a keen grin my way.

The next breeze that swept at us left behind a couple drops of rain on our foreheads. There was a storm coming.

"Let's go inside." Sonic offered. "I can send Knuckles home and we can have a jam session without him."

"I like the sound of that."

Sonic led me back inside the house after telling Knuckles to leave and sat at a small piano set against the wall. He stretched out his fingers before playing a happy tune.

"I didn't know you played." I said.

"You never asked." he said with a smile and continued to play before saying, "I know you're worried and stuff, but so long as you've got a positive attitude, you'll be okay."

"I know… I just wish I remembered more that's all. I don't even know who I was. How do I even move on from that?"

Sonic shrugged, "You just do. One day at a time."

The next day, Sonic woke me extremely early and insisted that I join him on an adventure to one of Eggman's abandoned bases. I turned over and tried to go back to sleep.

"Come on! It'll be fun! It might even cheer you up a little." He coaxed.

I grunted in response.

"Come oooooooooon! Wake up!" He took my blanket away.

I sat up and tried to snatch it back with one eye open but he was too quick.

"Ugh! Why are you going anyway?" I asked.

"We found some faint chaos energy readings from there and I wanna check it out!"

"We just escape _two _days ago! The last thing I want is to go back to a place like that."

"It's abandoned! It'll be different, I promise!"

I curled up to try sleeping without my blanket.

Sonic sighed, "What if I invited Amy to come?"

I sat up immediately, "Let's go!"

We set off on our adventure in no time, Amy was meeting us there and I was excited for my first adventure. That is until I saw a certain red echidna waiting with Amy. I halted.

"Why is _he _here?" I asked in a hushed tone.

"He's tagging along." Sonic replied casually.

"And why is that?"

"I thought an adventure would smooth things over between you two."

"You **invited him?**"

"Don't be so hard-headed, it'll be fine! An adventure will be all he needs to see you're a friend just- "

"Why is _she _coming?" Knuckles bellowed and pointed to me.

Sonic was about to make some sort of peaceable answer but I was faster with my reply.

"That's none of your business!"

Knuckles was caught off guard and stammered, "I-! What-! You-! You shouldn't be here! You'll just lead us into a trap!"

"Oh yeah? Well maybe I will! Just for you! Just cuz you said so!"

"Oh! I'll show you a trap!" He lifted his fist but I didn't flinch.

"Bring it, tough guy!"

"That's enough! Both of you!" Amy scolded, "I don't want to hear anymore or I'll send you home!"

"She started it…" Knuckles muttered and turned away to pout.

I huffed and turned away as well.

The abandoned base was in an underground cave. As we started to travel inside and into the dark, I could hear Amy sarcastically whisper to Sonic.

"Great idea bringing them both along…"

Sonic tisked, "Shame on me for trying to have them get along, I guess."

When we reached the entrance, which was shut, Sonic turned to me and asked.

"Any way to get in?"

I inspected the door. It looked familiar but the power seemed to be off. Many of the doors in Eggman's bases were never locked with deadbolts or bars but were actually forced shut with hydraulics. If the power was ever off then the pressure to keep the doors tightly closed went away.

"Just force it open." I shrugged.

"Tsh, that's it?" Knuckles remarked, "You guys should've just asked me. I got this!"

He held onto the door from the bottom and started lifting, the task proved harder than he had anticipated. He glared back at me.

"Force it open, huh?"

"Well yeah, genius! Except it opens from the _side _not the bottom!"

He grunted and started pulling the door open from the side as Sonic snickered away. The task of opening the door wasn't as easy as the concept, but Knuckles made quick work of creating an opening. We all filed in one by one with Sonic at the front, Amy following behind him and Knuckles in the back.

The air inside the facility was heavy and dusty, there were numerous large vats of clear boiling liquid but there wasn't any heat in the room. It was actually rather chilly. Knuckles warned us to stay together to avoid easily getting lost, I ignored his warning and immediately climbed one of the two metal stair cases that lead up to an observation deck. With the emergency lights on, I could see that the water tanks below me were left uncovered at the top and were indeed filled with water. But even though it was all boiling, there wasn't any steam rising. I had seen this liquid before.

"Hey! Where do you think you're going?" Knuckles exclaimed and started charging over.

I straightened my back and fixed a glare on him, I was ready for another argument.

"Didn't you hear me? I said we need to stick together!"

"Aw, were you worried about me?" I teased and batted my eyelashes.

"You-!" He stopped himself and turned away with a grunt, his cheeks were all red. Sonic was right, Knuckles wasn't very comfortable around girls.

"Are you shy?"

"I'm not shy!"

"You love birds done?" Sonic commented, "I thought we were here to find a chaos emerald."

Both Knuckles and I cut our eyes toward him with grimaces, but we canned the dispute for now and followed his lead deeper into the labs.

A lot of the hallways where just tunnels hewn from the earth and traveling through them sent chills down my spine. Whatever we were going to find at the end of this tunnel was not going to be a pleasant sight. Sonic and Amy where getting further ahead of me, I was being too cautious and it was slowing me down. Suddenly Knuckles grabbed my arm and yanked me back. Before I could shout at him a rock from the ceiling fell right where I was about to step! Then more rocks started falling, more, and more. We had to back up until it finally stopped. I was starting to panic.

"Cat! Knuckles! You guys okay?" Sonic called from the other side of the collapse.

"We're fine!" Knuckles replied.

"Good! Amy and I will find another way around. Meet us back at the entrance after you finish searching."

I swallowed hard. I was going to be alone with Knuckles for who knows how long. I could tell he didn't like the idea either, but no matter how strong he was it was a bad idea to just dig our way through the rubble.

With a tired sigh, he let go of my arm and started walking back to the main part of the lab. I followed behind quietly until he turned around and asked,

"Just why did you come along anyway, Tiny?"

"I'm _not _tiny! I just wanted an adventure for once…"

He snickered, "If you aren't Tiny, then I must be a whale!"

"Hey, you said it. Not me."

"I-! …wait a minute! You calling me a whale?"

I started to laugh and ran past him to round the corner, "You said it, not me!"

"Get back here!" He shouted as he chased me down.

I nearly lost him until that corner ended in a broken walkway over one of the water tanks. I couldn't stop in time and as a result I lost my balance and fell over the walkway and toward the water below. Knuckles was there just in time to catch my leg before I reached it.

"I gotcha!" He grunted then pulled me back up with almost no effort. "Not bad for a whale, huh?"

When he set me down, I took a sizeable step away from the edge.

"See what I mean about running off? We need to stick together from now on, got it?" He said.

I sheepishly nodded.

"Good," He breathed a sigh of relief and took a look around, "You know these bases better than I do, right? Where would all the important stuff be?"

I thought for a little while then said, "Well, I guess it would be in the control room. If Eggman ever visited his bases, that's where he'd spend most of his time."

Knuckles eyed me skeptically then said, "Lead the way."

My steps to the control room were very uneasy due to my little brush with death, I still didn't know what that liquid really was, or why it was so familiar but I couldn't shake the feeling it was very important to know. We reached the door and Knuckles punched his fist right through it. When he saw how wide my eyes went, he chuckled and said,

"Don't worry, I'd never use my full strength on you, Tiny."

I didn't appreciate the nickname for me but at least there was some endearment in it. Once he forced the hole open a little more, he let me slip inside first. This room was much darker that the others since there was only one emergency light running. There it was Eggman's desk, I knew it was nothing I should have been scared of but that voice in my head was telling me I shouldn't be here. Knuckles climbed in right behind me and saw the desk.

He walked right over and started opening drawers even after I tried to warn him not to. He didn't find anything but there was a computer built into the desk. I gingerly walked over to the desk and switched on the power. Even with the rest of the facility running on auxiliary power, this computer had a back-up battery.

"You think it's a good idea to start switching things on?" Knuckles asked.

"With the lab shut down like this, it should be safe."

"See if you can find any maps of this place."

"He never kept maps of his bases…"

"Tsk, figures… Blue prints?"

"Only on his traveling server, and I think that's disconnected."

"Traveling…? never mind. What's this base used for?"

I did some digging into the lab reports left on the computer's desktop, they were in-progress reports about the water in the tanks.

"This is about what's in those tanks out there…"

"So, it's not just boiling water…" Knuckles leaned in closer to read the report with me.

The report was about transferring chaos energy into water through some process of dilution, essentially Eggman was filling water with pure chaos energy with the use of a chaos emerald. The result was the water in the containers below. The water wasn't boiling from heat but from chaos energy itself. There was no chaos emerald here at all, the chaos energy readings were coming from the water. There were other files about him trying to discover uses for this water but Knuckles knew all he wanted to know.

"Time to tear this place down!" Knuckles said with determination. "Do you think there's an easy way to do it?"

"Well, that tunnel collapsed. So, it seems like caving this place in would be no problem. But we'd have to make sure we could get out of here before then. An explosion in the right spot would do it."

"Okay, where?"

"I don't know yet, but let me do some digging and I think I'll be able to figure something out. In the meantime, we need to let Sonic and Amy know about our plan."

"I can find them, you stay here and do what you need to do. I'll come back when they're ready."

"Got it!"

Knuckles climbed out of the hole he made in the door but took a moment to glance at me.

"Don't try anything funny!" He warned then went on his way.

I huffed and rolled my eyes and continued working away.

As I was searching through the computer's documents, a dialogue box opened on the screen: "Starting video call…"

It was him!

I panicked and tried to cancel the call and even switch off the computer but all the built-in computers in the labs were designed to take orders from him. Not even the power buttons switched off the computers without his say so.

It didn't take long for the video call to start.

"Who's poking around in my lab!? Cat!?" He leaned in closer toward the screen as though to get a better look at me, "Oh, thank goodness you're alright! I was so worried when you disappeared! I thought the worst!"

I felt all the color drain from my face in a white heat. Did I misunderstand and make the wrong decision?

I shook my head.

"You were worried about me? But you sent Metal after us! He almost killed me!" I retorted.

"I sent Metal to save you!"

"Metal tried to kill me!"

"Metal was trying to protect you. He didn't hurt you, did he?"

I looked down at my arm where Metal Sonic had grabbed me. There wasn't even a bruise.

"I suppose hiding behind the walls was your idea? It was very clever, just what I'd expect from you. I'm not sure what Sonic has told you but I promise not to hurt him if you would just come home."

Home? Is that what he called it?

"I… But that room, with the operating table..."

"What roo-"

"I was human once, wasn't I?"

"So you do know… I was afraid of this. But I suppose I've kept it a secret from you for too long. You were very sick when I took you in. I tried to cure you but the operation didn't exactly… work as planned. But I've finally figured out a way to change you back! Why don't you come home and we'll set this right?"

My head was spinning, was I just misunderstanding everything?

"No…!" I tried to convince myself, "no, I'm making a life here! I have friends and…"

"I know you think Sonic is your friend but he was only using you to escape. It's only a matter of time before he throws you away for someone else."

Had I really run off with someone who used me? I never did read the file that I gave Sonic. What if there was nothing in there and he was faking his sympathy all along? The very thought of it started to bring tears to my eyes. I shared so much of myself and was it really all a waste? I wanted Sonic to be here to speak out, to prove Eggman wrong, but the fact that he wasn't here hit me harder than it should have. I was completely alone.

"There now, don't cry. Just switch the power on in the lab and I'll come get you."

My hand hovered over the mouse, maybe 'home' was where I belonged after all?

Then I remembered.

"My name…"

"Er, what?"

"What was my name before all this? Did you ever write it down?"

He paused. I continued.

"And if you cared so much, why didn't you ever ask me how I felt? what I thought? Or what I needed? Why didn't you treat me as an equal or at least as someone worth your time? Why was I always alone? Where was your worry then, huh?"

"...You're not as stupid as I thought. Fine! I don't care! At least now I'm free from your constant blubbering! I may not be able to access everything in that lab but I can at least make leaving difficult for you!"

I heard the wiring of machines echo through the building.

"Good luck getting past that! Escape me once, shame on me. But I'd be an imbecile to let you slip through my fingers a second time!"

I looked back at the door, the clanking of metal feet hitting the ground was reverberating around the building. I returned my gaze to the computer screen, Eggman seemed very confident that this would stop me. I had had enough!

"Then count yourself the king of imbeciles!" I exclaimed. "I'm getting out of here alive and there's nothing you can do about it!" I hopped over the desk toward the door.

Knuckles was there waiting for me leaning against the wall, arms crossed with a pensive look on his face.

"Got here just in time to hear your little speech…"

"Y-yeah…?" I gulped.

Knuckles smiled and offered me his hand, "Looks like I had the wrong idea about you. Ready?"

I took his hand with a smile and we hightailed it for the exit. I looked behind me to see reserve robots following behind us. If we didn't do anything to blow up this base, then we would have come here for nothing. Then I remembered something.

"Hold on!" I slid to a stop and charged back.

"Where are you going?" Knuckles exclaimed.

"Help me get one of these bots in a tank!" I replied.

Knuckles didn't quite understand, but he followed my lead. I waited until one of the guards was standing on one of the observation decks over the tanks. It stood right next the broken section of walkway. With a smirk I charged into it and started pushing so it would fall into the tank. Knuckles caught on to the plan and joined in. As soon as it fell, we turned tail and run. With all the chaos energy in that water, any disturbance would cause a massive reaction.

I was right, as soon as we heard the splash there was an eruption, that spilled over to the next tank and the next until they were all going off. Knuckles and I out ran all of them. We were just about to reach the door.

"OUT OF THE WAY!" Knuckles shouted.

Sonic and Amy side-stepped just in time for Knuckles to burst right through the doors and pave the way for the rest of us. With all the chaos happening inside, the building was starting to shake and with that shaking the walls that once held strong were starting to cave in. We all ran as fast as we could from the cave and into the open air. The base was gone.

As we all took a break to recover and catch our breaths, Sonic paced a couple circles around us looking as cheerful as ever.

"Not bad for your first mission, huh?" He asked.

I stared back at my triumph and started to laugh. Knuckles glanced over at me and shook his head with a smile. I straightened up and punched Knuckles in the arm, it turned out he wasn't so bad after all. And I looked forward to seeing him again soon.

On the way home, I talked Sonic's ear off about everything that happened after we got separated. This was a day I would never forget. After having a warm relaxing shower and slipping into nice clean sheets now set up on the couch, I was ready for the most peaceful sleep I had ever had. The rain was gently pattering on the window as I drifted off to sleep.

. . .

On a rainy night, I was asleep until a bright light shined through my bedroom window. It shone long enough to wake me, as soon as I started to sit up a claw crashed through the window and reached for me. I was not quick enough to escape. I wasn't even awake enough to scream. Glass was everywhere, the cold rain soaked me and chilled me to the core as I was slowly being lifted out of my room and up into the headlights of the gigantic robot that held me.

Eggman sat in the pilot seat, laughing maniacally. I tried to push the claws around me to let go, but there was nothing I could do. I had the strongest hope that with all this noise, all this crazy activity, someone would see this and report it. That I would be saved. I knew that Sonic would stop my captor and that I would be free soon. I was almost excited about the rescue that I was so sure would come. I held onto that hope that whole way to Eggman's base, in the dark I shivered but kept a brave face. Even as I was lowered into the holding cell that would later hold Sonic.

"You're going to be very useful to me." He would say even as I said Sonic would stop him.

After a while on sitting in the dark and doing my best to stay warm, I started to doubt. I tried to remind myself I was being foolish for not staying strong. But when I saw the sun rise and realized just how much time I had waited to be rescued. My hopes shattered right then and there. I fought to free myself, I screamed and tried to run more fervently than I had before. All of it in vain. In the preparation room I was forced to exchange my pajamas for a uniform. Sick from crying, shaking from fear and broken from the realization that rescue was not on the way. I sat in that pale, cold room waiting for the event that would ruin my life. As the door slowly opened behind me, I had no more voice to scream and no more strength to fight as I was lifted and dragged away. I was strapped down to an operating table, needles pierced my skin, tubes were attached to my body. The most intense pain I had ever experienced washed over me. I lived in that blur of agony for a long time until I had completely forgotten everything.

I remembered waking up in the preparation room again, weak from the operation and my mind in a deep haze. I sat up and held my head in a pain that was a blunt stabbing ache. I was barely awake when Eggman stepped into the room, visibly disappointed but intrigued. As I looked up at the man I no longer recognized, he smiled and said, "You'll still be useful yet."

* * *

Thank you for read!

Part 5 will be posted next week around the same time :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Undesirable Truth, Part 5**

I woke with a gasp and sat straight up, cold sweat beaded on my brow and my eyes wide. I looked around the room in a frenzy. I was in Sonic's home. The rain had stopped, moonlight was softly pouring in from the window and I could hear the ocean waves crashing in the distance. That dream… It wasn't just a dream. It was a memory. That was the night I was kidnapped.

That was the night that I lost all my memories and who I was to a monster. As I started to remember it more clearly, my eyes filled with tears. I had wanted to be rescued so much and no help came for me. I remembered how much I screamed for help, as loud as my lungs would let me. Yet no one answered. My heart broke on that terrible night and now it was breaking again. I had counted on Sonic to rescue me and he hadn't. Now I was a lost soul, so far away from everything I knew, crying in the middle of the night. Alone. Why? Why wasn't I saved? Was I somehow not worthy of it? Did I do something wrong that warranted my struggle to be ignored? Was this somehow my fault? Did no one care at all? Was I just some nobody that no one noticed was gone all this time? No one cared if I was lost forever?

With the sound of each crashing wave, another sob escaped. It felt like the whole world was against me. All those years I was abandoned to servitude. And I would have easily still been there if I hadn't acted for myself. How much longer would I have been there if Sonic was never captured? My whole life? The very thought made my stomach churn. As I drew up my knees and buried my face in them, I tried to keep my cries as quiet as possible. I knew that this was something I had to keep to myself, everything that led me here was my unanswered cry for help. The logical part of me knew that it wasn't Sonic's fault for not knowing, but my heart was broken all the same.

The morning after, I woke up very late. Sonic had already gone on his way to buy groceries since the fridge was apparently empty aside from the foods that only Tails liked. It was just as well; I didn't feel like I could face Sonic after last night.

"Good morning!" Tails greeted.

He was as cheerful as ever but I just wasn't feeling up to matching his liveliness. He tried to ask me what was wrong but I gave him a vague answer. I needed some time away from people to get a grip on myself. I told Tails I was going to go explore the beach and started walking out there. I didn't really want to be on the beach, but where would I go? Since I was alone, I could go anywhere, but at the same time the wide-open spaces that the world presented were seemingly void if not dangerous. Even though I escaped Eggman's clutches, it didn't feel like my life was any less hollow. Nor did I feel free. This life felt the same except instead of being trapped by taking orders, I was now trapped by fear. How could I make something of my life if it was so infringed? My mind went back to what I was crying over last night.

I was never saved. The very thought brought tears back into my eyes. Why wasn't I worth saving? Why did I have to suffer under the old man's boot for so long in order to finally escape out of my own means? Was I really so unremarkable that my plight wasn't even noticed? These questions spiraled in my mind like flakes of ashes in a bowl of water. Every time a question circled back it was answered with the same response. It was because I wasn't good enough to be saved. I wasn't loved enough, I wasn't smart enough, wasn't strong enough, wasn't fast enough, wasn't valuable enough. I wasn't enough! And no one cared about me!

As I stood in the sand, facing the wind, trying not to cry, I heard Amy call for me. I hurriedly dried my eyes and cleared my throat to hide that my demons got the better of me as she approached. I didn't do a good job.

"Are you alright?" She asked. She knew I had been crying.

I looked away and sniffled.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?"

It almost sounded like she was scolding me, how old did she think I was? …Actually, how old was I? I knew it was around my twenties or so but that's all I was told. I really wished I had read that file from the lab, perhaps my age was written in there.

"Well, if you're not going to tell me I can't help you." She sighed, "That's too bad too, I was hoping we could spend some time together…"

"What kind of time?" I asked.

"I wanted to go shopping for a party dress but it's no fun by myself."

"Shopping again? We did that two days ago already."

"But you have to get ready for the party too~!"

"Don't go wasting your money on me… I won't be going to any parties anyway."

Amy shook her head; she was adamant about this.

"I know something's bothering you, so why don't you tell me?"

I hesitated to say anything but I answered,

"It's personal, I really don't wanna get into it."

She pouted a little.

"Well, at least come along. Even if you don't want anything, we can have some fun together."

I knew she was going to try asking me about my problem later but her offer was tempting. I agreed to go.

Now that I knew what to expect, going to the shops were less overwhelming and much more fun. It was nice seeing the shops this time around, there wasn't the debilitating pressure to just pick something, so I was free to enjoy the things I saw without the commitment of buying or trying anything on. I got to feel new fabrics without having to be interested in wearing them. The world wasn't so void and scary after all.

Amy pulled me along to a shop that primarily sold party dresses, it made every effort to make its appearance sophisticated and trendy. There were a lot of muted colors with pops of bright colors in a few corners, I suppose in an effort to make each primary color stand out more. I was more than happy to wait while Amy shopped around in here but, the moment she turned her head to look at me I realized that we were not here for her.

"Oh no!" I protested, "You've already done so much for me! I can't take advantage of you again like this!"

"But you _have _to like something in here, right? The town is having a spring festival and there's a dance that you'll need to dress up for!"

"But I don't-!"

"We'd all really like you to be there. You'll love it, trust me!"

They _all_ wanted me to be part of this? I was… wanted. How could I refuse?

Oddly enough, looking at all the dresses did put my mind at ease a bit. It at least gave my mind something else to focus on other than the events of last night.

"Hey Amy… How did you and Sonic meet?"

"Hm? Oh, it was a long time ago, he saved me from Metal Sonic when we were just kids. I guess you could say it was love at first sight." She said with a wistful smile.

_Oh, _I thought,_ she was one of the lucky ones. _

"…How did he know to save you?"

She blinked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well… you didn't know each other. So how did he know you were in trouble?"

"Actually, we sort of knew each other… I used to follow him around before then. It was a silly crush thing." She seemed uncomfortable admitting this so I thought it was best to drop the subject.

I picked up an outfit that I thought would work out for the time being, it was a tight gray dress with a black ribbon around the waist. If I was going to be the kind of person that blends into a crowd I might as well commit to it.

After trying it on and convincing Amy that it was actually a viable option despite the color, we started on our way home. My mood had greatly improved but there was still the lingering doubt.

"I'm glad we found something for you. But one of these days you're going to have to pick something with color!" Amy teased as we were walking back, but she was still concerned. "Are you finally going to tell me what's been bothering you?"

"I… It's nothing."

"You wouldn't be this upset for nothing. I haven't known you for too long but I can tell it's been on your mind all day."

"…I just need some time to think about it."

"All day wasn't enough for you?"

"I just-! last night… It was just a nightmare, that's all."

"Nightmares aren't nothing. If it's been bothering you this much then maybe you'll feel better if you just talked about it?"

"Well, it…"

I couldn't finish.

"It's alright, you don't have to tell me… Maybe when you're ready we can talk about it, okay?"

"No, you're right, I think I do need to talk about it. But it's just hard!" My voice wavered at the end.

"Hey…" She placed her hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eyes, "It's okay. I know you've been through a lot, so I can help you. Okay?"

I ended up telling her about my nightmare and how it was about my kidnapping. The whole thing that started this mess. I told her about being taken from my home in the middle of the night, and being held prisoner but I skipped over that part about my hope for rescue and the experimentation I endured. She knew immediately what I needed to do.

"You need to tell Sonic about this."

"Why?"

"He was the one that saved you, right? He- "

"Wrong."

"What?"

"He didn't save me, I saved myself…"

"Hmmmm, I'm sensing some bitterness here. You sure you've told me everything?"

I reserved my right to remain silent.

When we reached the house, Sonic and Tails were there waiting for me. I wasn't sure how to greet Sonic.

"Hey! Long time, no see!" He said with a bright smile.

I smiled back, but my emotional distress blunted my greeting.

"What's the matter?" He asked.

Amy was quick to let him know I wasn't feeling like myself lately (as if I knew what being myself felt like).

"Oh," Sonic replied, "well I think I know a quick way to cheer you up! How about another adventure?"

I shook my head.

"Hm, that serious, huh?" He asked.

Amy took Sonic aside and they had a small whispering match. No doubt it was about my nightmare. Afterwards, Sonic sheepishly walked back over and asked,

"Do you have a minute? Maybe we should talk."

We sat together outside on the porch in silence, neither one of us wanted to start. As my mind started thinking for a place to begin, it dug up the old memories of my kidnapping and my heartbreak. He finally broke the silence.

"Amy told me you had a nightmare last night… It was about your kidnapping?"

A wave of grief washed over my heart. I wanted to hide it was much as I could but there wasn't much I could hide at this point. I knew holding it in was only going to make me hurt more. I told him everything I remembered about my kidnapping. My voice held strong against the tears until I reached the part about the experiment and I couldn't continue. Before I could stop it, another bout of sorrow surged up from my heart and pushed its way up to the surface. As my face twisted in grief and I hung my head. Sonic put his hand on my shoulder and I turned away to hide my face with my free arm as my held back tears flowed out. I couldn't stop. All my fears were coming back, I would be alone again just like I was in that lab. Just like I was on that night. I held my face in my hands.

"I know you were counting on me to save you… And I'm sorry I couldn't." He admitted. "But you became your own hero, and you saved me in the process. It didn't matter if you couldn't remember who you were because your freedom was with you the whole time. You were always free. You just needed to remember that."

"But no one came for me! No one cared!"

"Sometimes we have to make the first move before someone can help us. I'm sure someone cared about you back then, just like we care about you! Even when you're all alone, you still have everyone who ever cared for you in your heart. You carry them with you."

"But what if we had never met? I'd still be there! I would have never learned the truth!"

"I don't think so. When I met you, I knew you were someone who had her own way of doing things. You were able to find out the truth without my help, all I did was speed things along. That's all."

I was able to finally start drying my tears, he was making a lot of sense. He reached back into the quills on his back and handed me the file I had taken from the lab.

"Here. You almost left this behind but I picked it up before we left so you could have it. I'm not sure if you've read any of it yet. But I think it might help."

"Thanks, Sonic… I'm sorry I was so worked up."

"No worries, I know this is hard for you."

I opened the file and started to read. Much of what was written were things I had remembered in the nightmare and the life I was living while in the base. There was nothing about my name written anywhere but the latest entry that was dated a week ago listed how old I was. Twenty-five.

"Looks like I turned Twenty-five last week." I stated.

"Congratulations! We should celebrate!"

We did in fact celebrate. The whole time Amy had me out shopping, Sonic and Tails were planning a party for me. Something about a naming ceremony. Tails was eager to explain.

"Our culture has a ceremony where kids get to pick their names for the rest of their lives. We usually have it around 15 but you're a special case. It's kinda like a birthday but a lot better!"

"Tails had his last year!" Sonic beamed proudly.

"Why hold this ceremony for me?" I asked.

"It didn't seem fair that Eggman stuck you with 'Cat' as a name so we thought you might appreciate the chance to change that." Sonic replied.

I couldn't stop the grateful smile spreading across my face, "Okay! How does it work?"

Tails explained further.

"Well, first we start by throwing off our old given name by lighting a candle with our old name carved into it and letting the whole thing burn away. While the candle burns, we announce our new name to our friends and family and they are supposed to discuss it."

"Discuss it?"

"Yeah, they're supposed to talk to each other to see if the name fits the person. For me it was easy cuz I was already using my adult name anyway. I can thank Sonic for that." Tails looked to Sonic with a smile.

"What can I say," Sonic replied, "I'm good at handing out names."

"Not for me!" I retorted. "Thanks to you Knuckles won't call me anything but Tiny!"

Sonic chuckled and shrugged, "Hey, if the name fits…"

"Don't!" I warned then looked to Tails with urgency, "Can I leave him out of my ceremony?"

Unfortunately, I was not able to leave Sonic out of the ceremony since he helped plan it. I didn't expect so many people to be here for the party but Sonic had invited all of his friends to come and help me pick my new name. As we were all gathered in his small living room, they had me light the candle with my old name carved into it and start and naming process. To be honest, I had never really thought of an alternative name for myself.

"How about Tempest?" I suggested, with all the anguish and upset feelings I had had storming inside me that day. I thought the name was appropriate.

Everyone in the room collectively grumbled.

"I know three Tempests already, Hon. You need something more unique." Rouge replied.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, Tempest is a pretty common name." Amy explained.

"Every new kid on the block wants to call themself Tempest." Vector added.

"Hm…" I thought a little more.

"I still like 'Tiny'!" Sonic teased.

"I second that!" Knuckles snickered.

"Don't! Don't you start!" I snapped.

The room reverberated with a chuckle. The candle was still burning on. Tails warned me before the ceremony that a new name was supposed to be chosen before the candle reached its end. I was starting to get nervous.

"Let's try something that fits your personality." Amy suggested.

I gulped, no one here really knew me and the last thing I wanted was an examination of my personality. In fact, I was already hot under the collar from being the center of attention for so long. I wanted this over with quickly.

"In that case," Knuckles piped up, "we should call her Loud Mouth."

"That's more a name for you!" I sniped back.

There were snickers floating around the room as Knuckles grimaced and looked away red faced.

"I kinda like where Knuckles is going there. You are pretty sassy." Sonic commented.

I gave him a questioning look. Did I need to challenge him too?

"She does seem to have a fire-cracker spirit." Espio commented.

"Okay, does Fire-cracker sound like a good name?" Tails asked.

I shook my head.

"No, something smaller than that." Sonic said with a smirk.

I sent him a glare.

"Spit-fire?" Charmy suggested.

"I don't want spit in my name!" I replied, "That's gross!"

"Hm, Cherry bomb…?" someone muttered under their breath.

"Yeah! Cherry Bomb!" Amy exclaimed. "It's cute _and _it sounds sassy!"

Everyone seemed to like the name, including myself.

The room was humming with everyone talking, as I thought about the possibility of being called Cherry Bomb for the rest of my life, I wasn't so sure about it yet.

"Hold on!" Knuckles protested, "I don't think that name fits her at all!"

"And why is that?" I retorted.

"Because!" Knuckles crossed his arms and grumped, "You have to actually do something to earn a name like that. I got my name from my fighting skills. Sonic got his name from his speed. Where is yours coming from?"

I was at a loss for words and it hurt. Sonic stood up in my defense.

"Actually, she's done a lot to earn that name." He said, "When we were still in that base as prisoners, she always had me beat when it came to snarky one-liners. And let's not forget how often she's clapped back at you."

Knuckles glared Sonic down.

"Should I tell everyone about the door incident?"

Amy snickered. She remembered.

Knuckles grumbled and sat back down; he would relent for now it seemed. Sonic looked back toward me.

"Congratulations, Cherry Bomb!"

The candle on my old life burned itself out as the party went on. I got to spend more time with Sonic's friends and knew with more certainty who I was.

The next day, I woke up with the weight of all my previous troubles gone. The sun wasn't shinning, it was actually really overcast, but that didn't stop my good mood. I hopped out of bed to go out into the world and make a difference for myself, I went outside to catch a sweet ocean breeze until I heard Tails scream.

"Look out!"

Before I could react, Metal Sonic zoomed in and caught me around the waist. It was enough to force the air out of my lungs. Sonic was quick to pursue as Metal carried me away, back toward what I could only assume was Eggman's base.

"N-no! NO! Don't! Don't let him take me!" I cried in a panic.

I worked so hard to get myself free physically and mentally, to regress now would be the end. I reached out for Sonic who was right behind and closing in. He could almost reach me until Metal threw me forward and turned to deliver a blow to Sonic's gut using all the momentum that his opponent had built up behind him to do the damage. Sonic was down. I was petrified, I knew running was useless, all I could do was watch in terror was Metal made his way toward me to snatch me up again.

I had nearly resigned to return to my old life until Knuckles swooped in from nowhere and punched the side of Metal's face. He knocked him down to the ground a few feet back just in time for Sonic to recover. In a matter of seconds, they were both beating Metal to bits. Knuckles' fist connected with Metal Sonic's core and that was the end of it. I was safe.

Knuckles dusted off his hands and gave me a snide look.

"Well, that takes care of that. I guess you're not so much a Cherry Bomb after all."

"Will you shut up?! How would you like it if something like that came after you?"

He scoffed and flexed his arms, "I could handle it."

"Oh, sure. You and your last three brain cells."

"Hey! I saved your life! You should be grateful!"

We glared daggers at each other.

"You honeymooners ready to go back inside or what? I've got an icepack with my name on it and I'm not gonna keep it waiting." Sonic held his injured stomach with discomfort.

Knuckles grumbled something to himself and started on his way back to the house. I was about to follow but I took one last look back.

As Metal Sonic lay in pieces on the ground, I couldn't help but feel guilty. Metal was my first friend after losing my memory. But after Sonic arrived, he was pushed to the sidelines because he couldn't quite compete as far as actual social interaction went. Even so, it was because of Metal that I grew familiar with Sonic, they both shared a lot of mannerisms and that helped me feel more at ease around Sonic because I understood him before I even knew him. And even though Metal was a machine sent here to kill me or at the very least take me back to Eggman, I couldn't help but feel a fondness as one would in finding an old childhood toy. Metal deserved a second chance just like I did. Maybe he needed someone to remind him that he was already free like I did?

"Guys…"

They turned and looked my way.

"What if I fixed him?"

"Are you crazy?" Knuckles exclaimed, "We just saved you from that thing and now you want to fix it?"

"Hear me out! I think I can make him good or at least be on our side!"

"No way, Tiny! You're playing with fire!" He picked me up and started to carry me under his arm like I was a sack of potatoes. No matter how much I squirmed and shouted he wouldn't let go as he started walking back to the house.

Later that afternoon, I snuck back to where we had left Metal and I picked up all the pieces I could find and brought it into Tails' workshop. He was more open to discuss the idea of fixing Metal and turning him into a good boy.

"Are you sure this is something that can actually be done?" Tails asked as he inspected some of the pieces that I had brought back.

"I think so. When I taught him how to play hide and seek, I wasn't actually teaching but programing it into him. If we're patient enough, I think the two of us can rewrite some of his coding."

"Isn't that kinda like brainwashing though…?"

I stared at Tails and blinked.

"…Tails… Sweetie… Sass-bucket… He's a machine. He don't got no brain to wash!"

Tails pouted at me a bit then pondered the possibilities, "I guess we could try it…"

A week later, after we had been working on our project in secret, Sonic entered the workshop by himself without any forewarning and was dumbfounded to find both Tails and I working late into the night trying to place Metal Sonic's head on a mannequin that we had found discarded. We all paused in stunned silence for a few moments while Sonic blinked a few times. Perhaps in an effort to make sure his eyes were working properly.

"Guys…" He questioned, "Why is there an oddly familiar scarecrow in our workshop?"

Tails was slowly losing his nerve. But I was determined.

"We're making Metal Sonic a good guy." I replied.

"Okay…" Sonic subtly nodded and scratched his chin. "And uh… why? Are you doing this?"

"Cuz… we can?"

"Fair enough…" He turned around and walked right back out of the workshop.

Tails and I looked at each other for a second to make sure that really did happen. Afterwards we went right back to working away, we almost got Metal's head to stick on when Sonic zoomed right back in.

"Wait a minute!"

This startled Tails and he lost his grip on Metal's head causing it to fall with a loud CLANK.

"Just what do you guys think you're doing?"

I saw Metal's eyes flicker on for a second.

"SH!"

"Don't shush-!"

"SSSSSHSHSHHSHSH! He's awake!" I whispered.

Metal blinked, only one of his eyes rolling around, blindly looking around the room. He pinged out P0-L0 as he continued to look. We were all dead silent. I looked over at the pieces of his body left scattered on the worktable. They didn't move.

"P0-L0" He chimed again until his eyes flickered out and we could all breathe in peace.

"This is _exactly _what I was afraid of!" Sonic commented. "You sure this is really a good idea?"

"It should be fine!" I reassured, "Tails and I looked into all his parts and found that his optics don't work so he couldn't really see us."

"That's not what I'm talking about! You're trying to piece together a killing machine!" He pulled me aside and murmured, "I know you're kind of attached to him, but Metal's dangerous."

"I know that… But we're only going one piece at a time. We'll try to get his head right first. Then it'll work! He deserves a second chance too."

Sonic looked at Metal and sighed.

"Alright, just don't go overboard and let him loose. Okay?"

I agreed and Sonic went to bed after grumbling something about how he was too tired for this.

Tails and I worked long hours into the night, reprogramming Metal and getting small pieces to work and respond. By the time we finally went to sleep it was in the early hours of the morning. I sent Tails to bed half an hour before I turned in. After I shut off the light to the workshop, Metal Sonic's eyes flickered on again. I waited. Metal chimed P0-L0 and waited. Against my better judgement I called out 'Marco' then Metal started to play an audio recording.

"I don't care what it takes for you to bring her back. Even if you have to kill her! Get me my test subject at any cost! I need that data to complete my research, got it?"

Then Metal shut off again. Spooky bastard.

The afternoon after, I hadn't even gotten a chance to wake up and Knuckles was already in my face shouting.

"I thought I told you not to play with fire!" He scolded.

I grunted and turned over to go back to sleep. He pulled me back over.

"Oh no you don't! You don't get to snuggle up all cozy while I'm talking to you!"

I slapped my hand into his face and pushed him away.

"Just let her rest, Knucklehead." Sonic said from the kitchen. "It'll give us a chance to throw Metal in the dumpster."

"Don't you dare!" I said and started to sit up.

"So now Sleeping-Tiny decides to wake up, huh?" Knuckles snorted then walked over to the kitchen to snack.

I stretched out my arms and slowly started to ease out of bed. It took me a while to get ready for the day considering Knuckles was hounding me every chance he got. But once I was fully awake, I set him straight.

"Listen, tough guy! This is a project Tails and I have been working on for a whole week! If you screw this up, I'll give you something to _really _be fussing about!"

"Ha! I'd like to see you try!"

He started on his way toward the workshop but Tails blocked the door.

"Out of the way, Tails!"

"No way! I worked hard on this too! I'm not gonna let it go to waste!"

Knuckles sighed heavily and glared back at me. Checkmate.

"Fine!" He yielded, "But from now on, you don't work on this thing unless I'm watching over you guys."

Tails and I groaned.

Regardless of Knuckles' presence, Tails and I continued to work. Busying ourselves with reprogramming Metal a bit more. We finally had his software set up that if a certain lyric was hummed or sung, he would automatically shut off. Tails and I recorded our voices several times in order to make sure it would always work. We even brought Sonic in to do that same thing. I didn't know he had such a good singing voice.

Knuckles only found the whole process silly and refused to record anything. We left him alone as I continued to work on reprogramming Metal and Tails worked on fixing Metal's busted parts with whatever we had lying around.

"We need to do something about his optics." Tails mentioned as he was affixing the broken metal end of a screwdriver to Metal's left hand as a replacement fingertip.

"Hm… Maybe we could use an old video camera?" I suggested as I was reading through some lines of code trying to pinpoint where I could make the necessary changes.

"Too expensive. I don't think we have one of those anyway." Tails replied.

"Why fix his eyes at all?" Knuckles questioned, "He'll be safer without them."

I sent Knuckles a glare.

"We're giving him a second chance not neutering him!" I remarked.

"Whatever…" Knuckles scoffed, "Just don't come crying to me if he wakes up and tears you to pieces."

"If I recall correctly, you came crying to us!"

Knuckles scoffed again.

"Cherry," Tails said, "what if we settled on a motion detector for Metal's eyes? It's not the best but it could work as a good replacement for the time being."

"Yeah, that should work. It's probably better than giving him full vision before his reprogrammed."

"Do you really need to be doing that?" Knuckles asked, "Just erase everything and start over or something."

"I can't do that! Eggman has a fail-safe in all his machines that if their programming is deleted the basic stuff is reinstalled and takes over."

"So basically," Tails queried, "it goes back to factory settings?"

"Pretty much."

"But I've been watching you go through line after line and it's driving me nuts!" Knuckles complained.

"Then watch something else!"

Knuckles grunted and slumped onto the nearest seat to pout. As we continued to work, he fell asleep at one of the worktables. I tried to ignore him but his snoring was just so loud! Even Tails needed to take a break and went outside to spend time with Sonic on the beach. I was in the process of reattaching Metal Sonic's arm to his torso when Knuckles nearly rattled the windows. I walked over to him and shook his shoulder to wake him up. No luck. After pulling my hand back to go back to work I saw that I had mistakenly left a handprint of oil on him. Then I got a mischievous idea. While he continued to sleep, I drew a mustache, bushy brows and a goatee on his face. I snickered at my art for a moment then went back to work.

He slept like that for a while, I had finished with Metal's arm and started getting the motion sensor attached as temporary eyes when Sonic walked in.

"WHO'S READY TO PARTYYYYYYYYYY!"

I jumped in my seat, Knuckles jolted awake and Metal's eyes flickered on.

"Give us a warning before you charge in here like that! Jeeeez!" I exclaimed.

Sonic shrugged.

"Sorry, I didn't think it would be so quiet in here." He saw Knuckles' face and snickered but didn't say a word about the beautiful artwork I had left on it. "Anyway, Tails and I are setting up a bonfire on the beach. You wanna join us?"

"Sure, let me just reach a stopping point and we'll join you."

Knuckles eyed me with suspicion, somewhat cluing into Sonic's snicker but not completely catching on. A few minutes later, Tails walked in to tell us we needed to hurry if we wanted any roasted marshmallows. At seeing Knuckles' face he also started to snicker. He left the room before Knuckles could ask just what was so funny. I continued to work in silence, pretending that I didn't notice until Knuckles walked over and picked me up by the nape of the neck.

This was a very odd sensation, everything I was holding in my hands fell out and I couldn't move my arms or legs. All I could do was hang there as he lifted me up.

"I don't know why, but everyone around here seems to think something's funny and I have a sneaking suspicion you've got something to do with it!" He said as he glared into my eyes.

I averted mine.

"I have no idea what you're talking about!" I replied.

"Is that so?"

"Y-yup!"

"What are you hiding from me?!"

"Nothing! I think you're just imagining things. It's probably nothing!"

"We'll see about that!"

He rushed out of the workshop and toward Sonic and Tails who were relaxing around the bonfire. He thrust me out toward them and exclaimed.

"WHAT DID SHE DO?"

Sonic and Tails did their best to hold in their snickers but as soon as Knuckles asked, they were howling with laughter. I knew for sure my goose was cooked. I just hoped he didn't get any ideas about throwing me into the fire.

"I KNEW IT!" He shouted. "WHAT DID YOU DO?"

"Go look in a mirror!" Sonic replied between his laughter and gasps for air.

Knuckles promptly dropped me and ran inside to go see what Sonic meant. I started running down the beach to keep him from picking me up again. As I was running, I heard Knuckles shout from the house.

"YOU'RE DEAD-MEAT, TINY!"

I looked back and saw he was chasing after me, fists at the ready. I ran faster and screamed.

"JUST YOU WAIT UNTIL I GET MY HANDS ON YOU!" He bellowed.

He chased me down the beach for what seemed like forever. I was going to run out of track soon, I needed to find a place to hide! I ran into a collection of trees by the beach, they got thicker the further I ran in. Perfect! If I was careful, he'd lose sight of me and I could double back to the house and get back to work. Maybe even find a better hiding place if it came down to it.

Before I could get too far into the brush he reached out and snagged me again. This time by the arm.

"Draw on my face, will ya? I'll show you!"

"You deserved it!" I shouted as I tried prying his hand off. "Next time don't snore!"

He dragged me back to the beach and toward the ocean, he actually seemed like he was having fun. This was a bad sign! He was gonna do something but what?

"That's big talk from a little fire-cracker!" He teased.

I pulled my arm back and started running again but he grabbed me by the nape of my neck again. Now that I was aware, I tensed up my arms and legs and started squirming so I could move them this time.

"No fair! Let me go!" I shouted and tried to kick him.

He dodged my kick and chuckled.

"Nice try, Tiny! But I won this time!"

I crossed my arms and pouted.

Knuckles seemed to think this was funny.

"Aaaw, is de wittle Chewwy Bomb upset?" He mocked and started to poke my cheek. "Is she sad cuz big stwong Knuckles outsmarted her?"

"If this is what you call outsmarting, I'd hate to see what you call a genius move." I remarked. "And will you quit jabbing my face? You're gonna leave a bruise or something!"

Knuckles only laughed.

"Oh, am I being too rough on your poor sensitive cheekies?" He started boring his finger into my cheek with more force.

I had had enough! As he continued to poke my cheek, I turned my head and bit his finger.

"OW!"

As soon as he dropped me, I bolted for the house leaving him behind to bemoan his injured hand and shout threats at me. I ran past Sonic and Tails and into the workshop. Knuckles was soon behind me but couldn't find me in the shop anywhere. I stayed as quiet as I could as he searched the workshop for me.

"You can't hide forever!" He shouted.

I continued to hide where I was, my muscles where aching at all the effort but I was confident he would give up before too long. He looked around one last time, sighed then left the room. I waited until I could hear him washing off his face in the bathroom and finally climbed down from the rafters above the door. He gave up looking for me after that and I could continue to work on re-coding Metal Sonic in silence.

I continued to work late into the night again as my friends told stories and sang songs around the fire. Knuckles had left the door open to the workshop so I could hear all of it from where I was working. I just finished re-coding Metal and rebooted him to get the code working. I set up the laptop I was borrowing to display what Metal Sonic was seeing, it looked like his original optics are were pretty damaged but still working and with the assistance of the motion sensor he at least could see something if it was moving. His eyes flickered on and looked at me. I could see the pixelated, blurry and incomplete image myself in the screen of the laptop. He didn't seem to recognize me as he chimed 'P0-L0' a couple of times. I smiled and leaned in closer so he could get a better look at my face.

"Good Morning, Metal! It's me! My name is Cherry Bomb!"

. . .

Thank you for reading!

And I would also like to thank those of you who left comments and reviews. I really appreciate your feedback! :D

Expect chapter 6 next week!


	6. Chapter 6

**Undesirable Truth, Part 6**

It was time for the spring festival. The entire time Tails and I were working in the shop, the nearby village was preparing for the festival and we hadn't even noticed. It would have passed us by if we hadn't gone into town to visit the hardware store. The town was already a very lively and well-kept place but they went all out for the spring festival. Even the trees had prepared their branches with soft pink blossoms. The air beneath them was thick with the smell of their pollen and the sky was shining bright blue through branches. Every storefront and street corner were decorated with bright flowers and there were vibrant banners and flags everywhere. I could see the town square from where I was standing, it was full of people gathering there to set up strings of lights, carnival style games and more vendor stands. The noise from all the hustle and bustle was overpowering the sound of music pouring out from the already up and running stands that were selling food, art work, toys and all sorts of attractive things. I felt inexplicably drawn toward the smell of fried food and popcorn that was wafting over on a cool breeze. Children were running around, playing and having fun, they all carried flowers or some manner of plant life in their hands as if they were the heralds of spring itself. It was a picture of joy and festivity, not too long ago this was a place I could've only dreamed of!

As I was taking it all in, Tails became distracted by a vendor selling sparklers, glowsticks, and all manner of light themed fun. I could see he was already calculating the price of the vendor foods against the price of the sparklers in front of him and the amount of money he had saved up. I chuckled and left him to make his very tough decision so I could inspect one of the banners with the festival information printed on it. As it hung from the lamp post I read that the dance that Amy mentioned was taking place tonight. I hadn't even thought about it until now, but I didn't think I remembered how to dance. This wasn't a dire realization, after all I could sit back this year and then participate with more confidence next year. But there was the sinking feeling that Amy would not let that stand.

Speaking of whom, she was quick to spot us. After we greeted each other, she asked a very poignant question.

"When are you getting ready for the festival?"

I blinked.

"Uh…"

I hadn't thought about that part either. All of this actually took me by surprise.

Amy laughed.

"You're going to at least clean up, right?"

I looked down at my hands, they were oil stained and a bit worn from working on Metal all this time.

"Ya'know…" I stated, "I probably should."

"Why don't you join me at my house and we can get ready for the dance together? It'll be fun!"

Amy had a house?

"Uh... Sure! That sounds fun!"

"Alright! I'll stop by and pick you up!"

We soon waved goodbye and parted ways. Tails walked over with two packs of glowsticks in each hand.

"Ready to go home?" He asked.

"What about the hardware store?"

"…Oooh." He groaned and sulked back to the light vendor to return a couple of his purchases.

He seemingly forgot to add the prices of the parts that we needed to his mental calculations.

Metal's rehabilitation was going very well. His parts, though a little on the haphazard side, were mending nicely. We had attached his head back to his torso, the arms were also attached but we had the wiring wrong so he couldn't quite move them yet. All the hard work I put into reprogramming him did make a dent in his violent tendencies but it didn't necessarily make him play nice. He was still stubborn in regard to his mission objective which I was having the hardest time overwriting. When we entered the workshop again, we found Metal off the worktable we had left him and crawling across the ground on his arms which until a moment ago we thought were inoperable. As soon as the door swung open and we walked in, all the movement was caught by the motion detectors in his eyes and he made a mad dash for us though his arms were fighting him. They seemed to move on their own the same way a baby's arms do, he reached for me but instead of a reach it was more of a flail. Baby arms or not, this was dangerous.

Tails and I knew what to do, if we just stood still, he wouldn't see us and give up. He was inches away, he paused, reached out at the air just in front of us as a way of feeling out if anything was there. Once that came up with nothing, he turned around and started dragging himself across the floor to find his other pieces. Tails started creeping behind him to reach the laptop so we could shut him off. Neither of us dared make a sound. He had almost reached the computer when Knuckles walked in behind me.

"I thought I told you two that you weren't allowed to work in here without me!"

Metal turned around immediately, his eyes burning at Knuckles, the two were about to charge at each other but I warned Knuckles not to move. Metal shambled toward us as fast as he could then stopped halfway, he turned his head to look for us. I made the barest whisper.

"Stay… completely still."

He followed my instructions as Metal continued to look for us.

Knuckles breathed back, "Why is this working?"

"We used motion detectors for his eyes, remember? He can't see us clearly unless we move."

We stood there frozen; our eyes locked on Metal who was trying his best to find us. He even called out P0-L0 as if I was dumb enough to fall for it. Knuckles grumbled a bit.

"…This is a bad time for my nose to itch."

Tails could just barely reach the laptop but he was on the edge of Metal's peripheral vision. He took the chance and reached as slowly as his could in hopes of grabbing the computer without being seen. Metal whipped around and started toward him. Knuckles charged forward to protect him but Metal caught Knuckles' fist and started to squeeze. Knuckles reacted on instinct and tried to shake him off. It was like watching two feral crocodiles fighting. Tails was startled by Metal's charge and had dropped the laptop. He was doing his best to get it working. With Metal distracted by Knuckles, and Tails unable to get the laptop to shut Metal down I needed to use the song to put him to sleep but I couldn't remember what it was.

"Tails! What was that song we were supposed to sing to put him to sleep?"

"I don't remember!"

Metal heard my voice and remembered his mission, he swiped at Knuckles and cut him with his free hand. As Knuckles reacted to the pain. Metal pushed himself at me and nearly grabbed me but I jumped up onto the worktable to avoid his grasp.

"Cherry!" Knuckles exclaimed and ran over to help me but Metal turned and swiped at Knuckles again, almost cutting his legs. Knuckles stopped just out of reach.

Metal tried to climb up the table while also keeping Knuckles away. Knuckles never took his eyes of Metal. He and Metal were in a mental battle against each other, Knuckles was trying to land a punch in the right place and Metal had his hand ready to grab Knuckles' fist. It seems he had adapted to his rewired arms quickly. Then Knuckles paused. He sang.

"Your last surprise~"

THAT WAS IT!

Tails and I sang in unison and Metal slumped into the floor. It worked.

With that disaster over a new one had begun, Knuckles was furious.

"I told you not to put that thing together! Why doesn't anyone ever listen to me?!" He exclaimed.

I stood up on the worktable so I had the higher ground for once.

"We were doing just fine until you showed up!"

"You call a killing machine running loose in the workshop 'doing just fine'? What would you have done if that thing got a hold of you when I wasn't here?"

"_He_ would have been shut off before he even got a chance!"

"No way! You're lucky I showed up in time to save you two! Maybe next time I'll just sit back and watch so you can learn your lesson!"

"The only lesson I'd be learning is how much easier things would be if you just stayed out of it!"

"Oh, yeah?! Well you-! You're still too small to be taken seriously!" he crossed his arms and turned away.

"I am NOT too small!" I retorted then I saw something red on his cheek.

He was bleeding. I sighed heavily. With all this excitement, and all the tantrums I had forgotten that he probably was as scared as we were and he had gotten hurt on top of it all.

"Alright, you big baby, let's go clean up that cut on your face." I grumbled and climbed down from the table, "Do you guys have a first aid kit?" I asked Tails.

Tails was busy bemoaning his poor broken laptop to notice my question. Knuckles seemed surprised he was injured in the first place; he touched his cheek to try figuring out what I was talking about. I led him into the kitchen and told him to clean off his cheek with soap and water while I looked for some bandages. They weren't anywhere in the kitchen, I checked the bathroom, not there either. I had almost given up on looking for them when I checked a drawer in the coffee table in the living room. Why on earth were they kept there? I came back to the kitchen to find he was drying off his cheek with the back of his hand. By the state of his gloves I knew that wasn't a sanitary idea.

"Nuh-uh! Wash it again."

"What do you mean 'wash it again'? I just did that!"

"And you dried it off with your grimy glove, so do it again!"

He grumbled and went back to the sink but not without sending me a glare over his shoulder. I watched him clean up the cut and handed him a paper towel to dry off with. He protested to putting on a bandage and we fought about it for a while.

"I'm not walking around with that stupid thing on my face!"

"Quit being such a baby! It's fine!"

"And stop calling me that! I'm taller than two of you combine!"

"So you're a _big _baby! So what? Just let me stick this thing on your face so I can get back to work!"

By the time I finally got to go back to work, Tails had left to go to the hardware store again to get parts to now repair the laptop. Knuckles and I had the workshop to ourselves, unfortunately. As soon as put on my work apron Knuckles asserted his opinion on the matter by promptly picking Metal up and carrying him away.

"Hey! Where are you going with that?" I demanded.

"To the dump!" He replied.

"Oh no you don't! What would Tails think if he found out you threw away his project?"

"I'll live."

He was on his way out of the workshop but I grabbed his tail and tried to pull him back in. His back straightened and he looked back quickly.

"Hey! Let go of that!"

"Put him down first!"

He grunted and reached back to grab me. I stepped aside. He reached on the other side and I stepped again, we spun in a little circle until I tugged just a little bit harder.

"Hey! Quit that!" He grunted, "I'm not a toy!"

"And that's not trash!" I tugged again.

"OW! Quit it!" He glared at me.

I glared back.

"Don't make me pull your squiggly tail off!"

"…It's not squiggly!" he muttered and dropped Metal on the nearest desk.

I sighed with relief and let his tail go. He went and sat down in his usual seat against the wall and scowled. I could finally work in piece.

An hour went by and Knuckles had fallen asleep, no snoring this time. I detached Metal's arms and switched him back on, his eyes flickered on and he looked at me.

"ChR-Bm…" He chirped.

"Shush now, you'll wake up Knuckles. Ya'know, it wasn't very nice cutting his face like that. You'll need to apologize as soon as you can talk."

He looked away stubbornly.

"Heeeey! Don't be like that, be thankful he didn't tear you to pieces. Or throw you in the dumpster."

Metal looked at Knuckles and chimed.

"bUm."

I chuckled, "Don't call him a bum! Do I have to sing you to sleep again?"

Metal dimmed his eyes and replayed a recording of Knuckles' snores.

I wheezed.

"Stooop! Be nice! He's gonna be one of your friends someday!"

"bUm!"

I started to laugh. This was the Metal Sonic I knew. It was good to have him back.

"He's not gonna like that when he wakes up and sees your being a stubborn bucket!" I teased.

There was a knock on the door to the workshop then Amy stepped in.

"Cherry?" She called.

"Yeah, I'm over here~!" I shut Metal off so he wouldn't scare her.

"Oh, wow! It's… kind of a mess in here." She stated and walked in, "Tails wanted me to let you know he was going to send time at the festival. Do you want to go get ready?"

"Oh! Um, yeah! Let me just clean up a bit." I started putting a few tools away.

"Should I wake up Knuckles and let him know?"

"Naw!" I snickered, "Let him figure it out."

At Amy's house, I was surprised at how much space she had and how much tidier the place was. It was a bit of a relief stepping into her home after being in Sonic and Tails' bachelor pad for so long. I took my shoes off before stepping anywhere past the front door. This was that kind of home. Amy thought it was funny.

"You don't need to take your shoes off, it's fine." She stated.

I left my shoes off anyway.

"Okay," Amy began, "I've got my makeup-set ready on the bathroom counter. And I thought maybe we could style our hair first.

I shrugged, it seemed like a good plan though I knew she'd be doing most of the work unfortunately. We started on our hair there were a few tools I was familiar with like the straightener and curler but since Amy was a hedgehog, she had a lot of other quill shaping tools that I found rather frightening. I picked one up and inspected it. It looked almost like a potato peeler with a fancy handle.

"Uh…"

"Oh, that's a quill sharpener. I use it on my bangs to curl them."

My eyes went wide and I gingerly set it back down. She snickered and shook her head.

"Don't worry, we won't be using that for you." She teased and started examining the fur on the back of my head. I never really called it hair; it was too short to be called that in my opinion.

"It's gotten a little longer!" She stated.

"Wait! Really?" I reached back there to see what she meant, sure enough. It was longer! I could run my fingers through it and everything. I never thought it could really get that long, at this rate I might actually have a full head of hair if I left it untrimmed for long enough. It made me wonder why this never occurred back at the base when I was working. Then I remembered the brush. I was given a brush that pulled on my hair every time I used it. I hated it but it was the only one I had. It must have been designed for keeping my fur short.

Amy smoothed down my hair and curled the ends up with her fingers to see how that would look.

"Hm… That seems like a good look for you. But why is your fur so rough?" She asked.

I shrugged.

"Don't they have any conditioner at Sonic's place?" She teased but when she registered my blank expression her tone changed. "Do you… not use conditioner?"

"I… No? I just used soap? Was… -Am I not supposed to?"

"Oh, you poor thing…" Amy tisked and shook her head. "No wonder your fur always looked so dry. Here…" She handed me a bright green bottle, the label read 'two-in-one body wash for sensitive skin', I popped the cap open, it smelled like lavender. "I want you to use this on your fur from now on. You can't keep using bar soap like that. It damages your fur, okay?"

I sheepishly took the bottles, "Okay… But how much am I supposed to use? Do I really use this on everything?"

I ran my hand through my newly discovered hair again and found a piece of plastic from one of Metal's parts in it. Amy tisked and insisted I clean up in the shower.

"I can't style anything with plastic in it."

She was right about the body wash versus the soap. My fur was so coarse before but now felt cleaner and silkier. I didn't think I could really feel that soft, and my fur seemed to shine. When I was done, I put on my new dress and helped Amy with her quills. She wanted to curl them, she showed me how to use the curler but I already seemed familiar with it. Soon all her quills were curled perfectly and it only took a few minutes. I supposed that I had a muscle memory that stayed with me all this time. Next, I helped her with her makeup, that didn't go as smoothly so we settled for doing our own. I still needed help. It was frustrating knowing what I wanted to look like but not being able to implement it.

I was very thankful for Amy's patience. As soon as we were ready, we marched out into town to celebrate the festival with our friends. We found them in the park waiting in line for the bumper cars. I could see Knuckles was irked that I left him asleep in the workshop by himself. But soon the grimace on his face transitioned to withdrawn confusion all the while he was peeling off the bandage I had stuck on his face. I smacked it right back on.

"Don't touch it!" I warned.

"Tiny?" He sputtered then growled, "What's the big idea ditching me in the workshop, huh?"

"He was scared that you drew on his face again." Tails snickered.

"I was not!" Knuckles retorted.

"You ladies wanna join us?" Sonic asked.

"Only if I you promise me a dance." Amy teased and batted her eyelashes at Sonic.

"No thanks, I'm good!" He turned away and tried to play it cool.

"I'll dance with you, Amy." I teased and gave her a smirk.

She snickered, "Girl, thanks. Sorry Sonic, you missed your chance."

We all had fun in the bumper cars, I did my best to target Knuckles as much as possible. He gave me enough grief that day and it was time for some pay back. After the cars, we went and played some of the little fare games a lot of the small prizes were flower seeds, or bouquets, I saw a little arts and crafts stand and tried to learn how to make a flower crown out of daisies. It was a lot harder than I thought. Tails won himself a kite and immediately wanted to try it out. We found a spot in the park and sat down to have vendor food for dinner while Tails tried to get his kite as high as possible. We had to tell him flying it up there himself was cheating. His food was getting cold anyway.

With all the people around and with all the noise I was starting to get a little overwhelmed and snuck back to the workshop to get some peace and quiet. I sat down next to Metal and sighed. He didn't get to have fun like I did today. Even though he was scary sometimes, there was a personality underneath all that machinery. I just needed to dig it out. Knuckles walked into the workshop to see me pensively staring at Metal's powered down face and huffed.

"Why is it that _I'm _not allowed to ditch the party but you get to leave whenever you want?"

I woke up from my rumination and looked up at him.

"Oh, it's you." I pouted.

I leaned forward on my arms against the worktable. I wasn't ready to go back to the party yet.

"Don't you think you've spent enough time in here already?" Knuckles asked.

"It just didn't seem fair that I got to go have fun without him…" I replied.

Knuckles was obviously confused.

"But he's just a robot!" He said as he took a seat next to me. "It's not like he feels anything like that."

"I know…"

"What's got into you anyway? Suddenly you're treating him like he isn't a threat, like he's a person and for what? It's not like he knows what that means."

"He isn't a threat, he's a friend!" I sighed, "It's a long story anyway…"

"…Well, I'm not in any hurry to go back out there."

I looked at him to figure out if he was actually interested. He returned my gaze with expectance.

"Back at that base, I didn't have any one. I was pretty much the only living thing in that place the whole time. But I had Metal. I just really wanted someone to talk to, it didn't matter if he wasn't a real person or not. At least he was there. After a while, I started working on making him act like he was alive, I taught him games. How to make jokes. He started playing back recordings as a way to talk. For a little while it almost felt… real."

Knuckles bowed his head, he seemed to be familiar with the kind of loneliness I was talking about. I continued.

"One day, Eggman called him away on a mission. I didn't see him for months. I missed him so much, that I even tried to call him to find out where he was. He never answered. When I finally got to see him again, he was torn to shreds. It made me really upset to see him like that. I did my best to help fix him, but Eggman took over the whole process and pushed me out. By the time Metal was all patched up, all my hard work was erased. He didn't even hang around me anymore. All the time I spent making him a friend went out the window because it 'wasn't what he was built for'. I lost my only friend… Even if it wasn't real. I just… really wanted to see him again."

Knuckles looked at Metal's empty head on the table then back at me.

"So, all this stuff you've been doing is about that, huh?"

"I guess..."

"Then, if you ask me, Metal was never your friend in the first place."

I glared at him, "How could you say that?!"

"You were just filling him with parts of yourself. _That's_ what you were friends with."

That caught me off guard, but he was right. The more I thought about it, the worse it felt.

"I can't totally understand what it was like in that place, but I know what it's like to be completely alone for a good part of your life. The thing is, you have friends now. You've got Sonic and Tails and Amy..."

"And what? you?" I scoffed.

"I wouldn't go _that_ far. But you've found people in your life now. So why go back to the robot?"

"I thought it was to give him a second chance… I thought for sure I was seeing something alive in him all those years ago. But now that you put it that way…"

"Are you finally gonna drop this whole thing already?" He asked.

"Well… But when he-!"

"He? Tiny, it's a machine! A bunch of scrap for a body and a bunch of numbers for a brain! Just drop it already!"

I turned away. I didn't like that he was starting to raise his voice or that he was starting to make sense. He sighed and scratched the nape of his neck.

"Cherry… I know it's hard trying to put your trust in new friends. But it's worth the risk. You just gotta put the effort in."

"…What am I gonna do with him then? I can't just leave him."

"We can figure that out later. But right now… Why don't we go back outside? I… Kinda wanted to see fireworks…" He bashfully admitted.

I lightly chuckled and looked back at him.

"Look at you being such a big softie! If I didn't know any better, I'd start to think you have a soft spot for me~!"

"Don't get any ideas!" He retorted. "This stays between us, got it?"

We went back out and rejoined the group. We were just in time for the fireworks. We sat and watched the bright colors blast into the sky and gracefully fall and fade away. Once that was over the dance began. I followed my original plan and stood in the back as I watched everyone else dance. The slow dance was announced and the quick beats of the music started to die down to a slow ballad while everyone started shuffling away from the dance floor to let the couples, old and young, take the stage. I watched Amy do her best to pull Sonic onto the dance floor with her, she had a good grip on his arm and was tugging with all her might but he had a strong grip on a light pole with his other hand and would not budge. It was pretty entertaining. I knew Sonic really cared for Amy but he was funny about the way he showed affection and this kind of public display was not his forte. Poor Amy just wanted to dance. Maybe later I'd 'accidentally' leave some music playing in the workshop and ask them both to 'turn it off' or something.

Suddenly I felt a tap on my shoulder, it was Knuckles. What could he want? He looked a little flustered. Did he want to ask me to DANCE? Dear Lord No!

"Hey, I uh… Didn't get to say this earlier. You look really different; I actually didn't recognize you when you walked in."

Was that a compliment?

"Thanks… I guess."

"Hey!" Tails exclaimed, "They're gonna play my favorite song soon! Do you guys wanna dance with me?"

"Only if you make sure this Big Baby doesn't step on my feet!" I nudged Knuckles in the ribs with my elbow.

"No promises, Tiny!" He replied with a smile.

The couples dance was soon over. Too soon for Amy to get that slow dance she wanted unfortunately but she'd have her day yet. Next was a bop for the friendships. People were bouncing onto the dance floor with whoops and smiles. I was still hesitant. I still hadn't figured out if I could dance. If I couldn't I knew Knuckles would never let me live it down either. I almost backed out of my promise until I saw the eager smile on Tails' face. I had to do it. I looked to Knuckles for reassurance. He had the same drive. And to be honest, Tails was like everyone's favorite little brother, and if he asked you to dance with him, how could you possibly say no? We strutted into the crowd of dancers and started moving to the music. The rhythm of the song was easy to identify, before I knew, I was moving in tandem with it and having fun. My feet moved freely and at that point it didn't matter how any of my motion looked. What matter was who I was dancing with and the fact that we were all having fun together.

Sonic was quick to join in, Amy followed. We had a whole group of our own but Knuckles seemed to be slipping to the back to try avoiding any attention. He really was a big baby! I stepped toward him with the purpose of getting him back into the click. He wasn't getting off that easy! He tried to wave me off but I only grabbed his hands and pulled him back in. I told him to just follow my steps and follow the beat. It really wasn't that hard after all.

He seemed to finally be enjoying himself when there was a loud whistle like a firework going off and something flew right past us. It landed and tore up the ground as it halted to a stop. Everyone backed away, it took me a while to see what it was until the dust cleared. Through the clouds of debris, I could see the bright red lights of Metal Sonic's eyes staring directly at me. But how? How did he get here in one piece? How did he repair himself? I didn't have time to think. All my friends charged at him. Striking when they could to keep him from reaching me. But Metal had the crowd to his advantage. Any time they were ready to strike, he would duck behind an innocent bystander. No one could get out of the way fast enough; he was always able to find new cover. Sonic tried to out match Metal by trying to predict where he would go next a beat him to the punch. They moved so fast that the others couldn't keep up. Tails flew above and tried to crowd control people to safety to try removing Metal's advantage. Amy was doing the same. Knuckles stood his ground next to me. Ready for when Metal would eventually try to gun it for me.

I looked around at all the panic and havoc, people were screaming and running for safety. This was supposed to be a time for celebration. This was supposed to be a place of comfort. This was a small village where everyone knew each other, they all depended on each other and now they were scattered. This was all my fault! If I hadn't brought Metal to this place, they would all still be safe! I wanted to help. I thought about his shut-off code, if he could hear it, there was a chance he would shut down and we could bury him for good. As much as it hurt to have to do that to him, it was the only way.

"Knuckles! I need him to hear the song!"

"What?"

"The song that shuts him down. I need him to hear it!"

Knuckles looked back at me in aggravation then back to Sonic who has now fighting Metal one on one. Knuckles motioned for me to climb up on his back.

"Alright, Tiny, you'd better be right about this!"

We got close enough for Metal to hear me and I shouted my lungs out. It was nearly working; I could see his eyes dimming but he'd snap out of it somehow. Sonic joined in when he could, when he did it seemed to work enough to slow Metal down so Sonic or Knuckles could get a strike in. Eventually Metal shut down. I got down from Knuckles' shoulders and took a breath.

"Not bad, Cherry!" Sonic winked.

I shook my head, "This is all my fault…"

"You didn't tell Metal to come to the party, did you?"

"I'm serious! I… I should never have started this…"

"Hmph!" Knuckles crossed his arms, "That's what I've been saying all along! It's about time you listened!"

I looked down at my reflection in Metal's powered down eyes. I couldn't shake the feeling that I had lost something.

"Hey, don't feel so bad." Sonic reassured me, "You did your best to give him that second chance. It's not your fault that he didn't take it."

I started to smile again.

"Thanks guys, I-"

Before I could finish, Metal Sonic awoke and took the opportunity to grab me and bolt. Sonic and Knuckles chased after each one grabbing my hands. I held on to them for dear life. Metal made tight turns to throw them off and at one point I nearly lost an arm. I tried to pull Sonic closer but my muscles were too weak. Knuckles took a leap and grabbed onto Metal's back, I held onto Knuckles to help him stay on. Metal thrashed around to shake him off. He sped past a tree a couple times, making a gash in the trunk with each pass. As the tree broke and fell, Metal ran through the branches. Knuckles got smacked in the face with a particularly strong branch and lost his grip. Sonic was on the other side of the tree blocking Metal's path. Metal rammed into Sonic, knocking the air out of both him and me. Sonic got back on his feet, Knuckles was close by and Amy and Tails had returned to the fight. By that point Metal realized he could not get away with me in one piece but that I was his bargaining chip to escape. He held my neck with one hand and pressed the tip of his finger from the other hand into my temple. He was starting to apply pressure and I hissed in pain.

Everyone had to stand by. Metal started to back up, taking me with him as everyone looked to each other for ideas then back to me. I reached for them, I tried to pry Metal's hand from my throat but he just squeezed. By this point I was shaking and tears were streaming down my cheeks. _Don't! _I thought, _Please! Don't let him take me away! _At this point there was nothing they could do. Then I heard Eggman's voice played back on Metal's mission recording:

_"I don't care what it takes for you to bring her back. Even if you have to kill her!"_

If they tried anything, he was going to kill me. After having successfully sent his message across, Metal scooped me up and took me away from my friends and my new life. I watched them shrink in the distance behind us, my new life was over.

. . .

Thank you for reading and thank you for your patience. It took me a little longer to get this ready.

I would also like to say thank you for leaving reviews, I really appreciate it!

One of the reviews asks how old Sonic is in this fic - I did try to leave a few hints in earlier chapters but I don't think they were clear enough. Sonic is supposed to be around 23 in this fic. I wanted to write a fic where everyone is a bit older and starting their adult lives.

In regards to Cherry Bomb, I'll go ahead and leave that question unanswered.


	7. Chapter 7

**Undesirable Truth, Part 7**

It didn't take long for Metal to fly to Eggman's new base. This one looked just like the old one I used to live in, only a few minor changes. For instance, the doors weren't hydraulic anymore but had locks, magnetic if I recalled correctly, he had a few early blueprints for them in the works before I fled. As Metal landed in front of the doors that were slowly opening before us my heart started to race, now that I knew the truth, I'd be treated like a prisoner for sure. I looked behind us in hopes that my friends had followed behind, no sign of them. In a last-ditch effort, I put all my energy into thrashing and writhing as hard as I could to free myself from Metal's grip. As a response he dug his sharp steel fingertips into the skin of my arm, I suppose he thought the pain would deter me. I tugged harder and tried to slip through his hold, I could feel the points of his claws tearing into my flesh. It was time for me to claw back! I reached up and tore at the exposed wiring on Metal's shoulder and ripped it loose. His arm went limp and I made a run for it. He was quick to chase me down but I threw a rock at his chest, right where his battery should be, in hope of knocking it loose inside his shell. That, at the very least, slowed him down. I made it back into the forest we came from and ran the trail to the village. Metal shambled behind me methodically, not once taking his eyes off me. He had to move slowly or else risk shaking his battery completely free. He knew I would reach a dead end soon, but I had the strongest hope that I would reach my friends in time.

I ran as far as I could until I reached a cliff face, there was no way I could climb it before Metal reached me. I was done for. As I looked back at Metal, I noticed a spot of blood on the ground between us. Did that come from me? I glanced at my arm, Metal's grip tore deep lines into my bicep, blood poured from the wounds freely. I looked back up at the top of the cliff, if I couldn't reach my friends, I could at least leave them a clue. Metal clutched my shoulder, the tips of his fingers threatening to bite into my skin again as he dragged me away. I squeezed the blood from my wound and left as much of a trail as I could. I smacked my handprint on rocks and tree trunks the whole way. It was the most I could do, though it left me feeling queasy. My effect on Metal's programming seemed to keep him from noticing my efforts, he did nothing to stop me. At least I had _some_ luck.

When we got inside the base, Metal unceremoniously threw me forward and I stumbled and fell. All that work I put into piecing him together and this was all the thanks I got? There was blood all over my hands at this point, they were visibly shaking as I pushed myself up. Eggman was standing just ahead, ready to gloat.

"Try not to bleed so much, these are new floors." He commented.

I glared back at him.

"You don't want blood on your floors, but on your hands it's just fine?" I retorted.

"Don't be so dramatic. I improved your life!"

Two guard bots picked me up by the arms, the one on my left gripped my wounded arm tightly and I hissed in pain. Eggman chuckled and we started toward the holding cells.

"By the way," He added, "I should thank you for putting Metal Sonic back together. If it wasn't for your hard work, I would have never found you!"

I sighed and hung my head; this _was _all my fault. I should have listened to Knuckles and Sonic. My face betrayed me, I was too visibly troubled and the old man took great joy in it.

"Yes, that's right. All thanks to you I was able to remote in to Metal Sonic's operating system. Even when you betray me you've proven very useful."

I spat at him and shouted,

"Shut up! I've had it with you and your lies! I won't be here for long! I'll escape again! Just you watch!"

He frowned and punched in the code to the holding cell.

"Hm, I see you picked up some bad habits from your new friends. No matter, the testing will start again soon and you'll forget all about them."

He was going to try again? Ice gripped my spine but my blood was boiling.

"You-! You won't get the chance! I'd rather kill myself first!"

"That's enough whining for now."

When I was dumped into the holding cell, I dashed for the door but it slammed shut just before I could reach it. I pounded on it as hard as I could, shouting for him to let me out even after I knew he had left. I battered that door until my hands were bruised, just to keep myself from crying.

Eventually I ended up sitting against the door, waiting for a plan or a noise or some hope that I would be free. I started to wonder if this was going to be the end of my free life forever. I wondered if I was just going to forget again and start over as if nothing happened and believe the same lies that allowed fear to rule me. Pin-pricks of tears were forming in my eyes, I was trembling at the thought of going back to that experimentation table but I knew there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was trapped again, and the worst part was I knew help wouldn't be here in time. I was the only help I had, and I was useless. I knew that if he went forward with his experiment again, my memory would be erased, and the old geezer would make extra sure that I never questioned him again. I scanned the room, looking for anything that could help me escape, but there was nothing. He made sure my cell was empty.

I thought that perhaps being dead was the better option. With the room empty it would be hard to implement anything quick and easy but if I was determined…

Did he ever think about ending it all too? Was this how Sonic felt when he was kept a prisoner? Sonic… My friends… The village during the spring festival. The smell of flowers and popcorn. All those kids playing and laughing. The fluffiness of the cotton candy. The light airy feeling of spending time with everyone under the cherry trees and the pastel pink flowers. Wasn't that worth fighting for? And my friends… what would they think if I gave up on them like that? As if I didn't have any faith in their rescue! What if they came to rescue me and found that I had…? No! I would not give up like this! There were other options, I just couldn't see them yet! I would not lose myself like this now! And I was not going to give up hope, even if I lost my memories, I knew my friends would not give up on me!

I started pounding on the door again.

"Hey! I need medical attention!"

I had a very rough plan; it wasn't much but if I could get the door to open, just once, maybe I could think of something else along the way. There was an observation window on the wall to my left, it was pitch black until a light came on from the room on the other side of the glass. The old man must have been watching the whole time.

"Now you suddenly remember you're injured?" He asked over the intercom.

"You gonna let me bleed to death before you can start your precious experiment or am I gonna get some medical treatment?"

Eggman pressed a few buttons on the console in front of him. I watched intently, maybe he was calling a medic bot? Some time passed and nothing was happening, so I became impatient.

"Well?" I asked.

He scoffed, "You'll survive."

"The hell I will! You seein' all this?" I waved my arms to display the bright red coating. A few drops flew from my hands and hit the glass.

"Enough! I'm far too busy to pamper you!"

"And what _are _you doing?"

"Preparing to wipe your memories again! What do you say to that?" He leaned forward with a menacing smile.

"Bullshit! You wouldn't dare!" I was hoping I was right on this bluff.

"Wouldn't I?" He continued to smile.

"What's the vault passcode?"

His grin disappeared quickly, "…What?"

"The passcode. For the vault. You remember it?"

He was silent. I was on the money!

"That's what I thought…" I smirked, "See, you can't wipe my memories because I was too valuable a worker. I made sure to remember everything so you wouldn't have to. And if that's gone…" I shook my head.

"You little-! You impudent-!" he stammered, "How dare you make such an assumption! Of course I know the passcode! I-!"

"What is it then?" I interrupted.

He stuttered irritably, trying to find an answer.

I couldn't help but snicker, "You can't scare me anymore, old man! I have leverage now!"

"You most certainly DO NO-!"

"And the best part is you practically _gave _it to me!"

"You listen to me, you little welp! You may think you have the upper hand, but remember who's actually pulling the strings! I can still finish my experiments _without_ wiping your precious memories!"

I wasn't totally convinced but I knew not to push my luck. I had made my point. Now it was time to negotiate. I crossed my arms while making sure to apply pressure on my wound to keep it from bleeding out further.

"Fair enough," I said, "But how about some medical supplies? I need to bandage this up at the very least."

"Fine." Eggman huffed.

He pressed a button and a first aid kit dropped from a hatch in the ceiling of my cell, startling me. It would have been funny to suddenly see an object just randomly fall like that, but given the situation, I was too tense to notice. I used the kit to tend my arm and breathed a sigh of relief.

"There!" The old man griped. "You have your medical treatment. Now tell me that passcode."

"Ah-ha! So you didn't know it!"

"Just get it over with!" He shouted.

"Alright, alright, geez! Don't go giving yourself a heart attack…" I thought back to the last time I had to enter it. "It was… 'the dog off' capital T, capital D, zero for the o in off and capital f's."

"That's _it_?"

"I had a lot of things to do at the time! What more did you want?"

He grumbled and started to enter the password. Apparently, he had to go without any valuables for a while. I was getting curious.

"Is this really why you wanted me back so badly? So I could tell you passwords and stuff? Do you want to barter for the budgeting spreadsheet password next? The passcode to the furnace room? Or maybe a walkthrough on updating the server system?" I complained.

"Don't be so foolish! I could reset any one of these passwords if I had the time… No, you're more useful as a guinea-pig."

"For what? What are you doing this for! You said so in the report, the experiment failed! What more could you possibly need from me?" I shouted.

He was quiet for a moment, then grunted. "So that's where my file went. Alright, smarty-pants, your experiment did fail! But I'm planning on picking you apart to find out why."

"What… were you trying to do?"

"You don't need to worry about that."

"The hell I do! It's the entire reason I'm here! Can't I at least know the reason why I'm in this mess in the first place?"

He refused to answer.

"I did so much for you!" I argued, "I wasted three years **of my life**! Don't I at least get to know **why**?"

"…Well, since this information will die with you, I might as well. You must already be aware that Sonic and his friend Shadow have what are called super forms, correct? They like to use the chaos energy stored in the chaos emeralds to grant them unlimited power for a short period of time. I suspected that if a human gained an affinity for chaos energy, much like your animal friends, then that human could also use the chaos emeralds to attain a super form."

"You… kidnapped me for that?! Why couldn't you test that on yourself? Why drag me into this?"

"Chaos energy is dangerous. Humans can't withstand the raw power for too long. That's why I diluted it with water and pumped it through your body. You barely survived. It was quite fun to watch!"

I was too angry for words. He found this amusing and continued.

"Your transformation was an intriguing surprise! No doubt it will present an equally surprising answer when I cut you open and take a closer look. I would have done it sooner, but I needed to see just how long you would last in this new form. Too bad you had to go snooping around, I would've kept you alive longer if you hadn't run away. But I suppose it was only a matter of time before you became useless to me anyway."

I wanted to scream in anger. But I knew I had to play my cards right. I clung to my bargaining chip just a little tighter. What was the one thing he couldn't do without?

"So hasty to kill me… I suppose you don't need any other chaos emeralds?"

"That's an interesting offer, provided you aren't lying! But we can bargain later. I've got more pressing matters to deal with at the moment. I'd send Metal to keep you company but I still have to fix him after you and your friends **ruined** him!"

"You're welcome! I left a few surprises for you in his operating system, have fun weeding those out!"

I watched as he left the observation room. Something was going on. I knew it. He wouldn't have left so soon if there wasn't trouble. That gave me some hope that my friends had made it here in time.

I looked down at the first aid kit. Not much to work with but perhaps it was enough to allow me to escape. I checked the inside: disinfectant, bandages, gaze, medical tape, a tourniquet and a small pair of scissors. I looked up at the ceiling it had come from. The hatch it had fallen from was just big enough I could fit through it. I looked at my hand, I was a cat, right? Perhaps I had claws? I flexed my fingers. Nope. I took the scissors and went to the door, maybe I could pick the lock? I didn't know the first thing about picking locks and there wasn't anything I could access from my side of the door. I looked at the window, it was too thick to smash open but I did notice that the window was small. It didn't have a full view of the ceiling of the room. Now I had a plan.

Using the full length of the room to my advantage, I ran to the end, ran back toward the door and tried to run up the wall toward the ceiling so I could grab the one security camera in the room. On my first and second attempts I fell flat on my back. I went back to the end of the room again, this time I was going to make it. I was sure. I ran toward the security camera, planted one leg on the wall and used my momentum to spring as high as I could. I was able to grab onto the security camera, and used it to climb up into the corner between the observation window and the door. My tail waved back and forth frantically as I balanced precariously on the window ledge before it finally calmed down. I took a deep breath and waited. To anyone looking in, it would appear that I was gone.

It was a long wait. My arms and legs were extremely tired, when the door finally opened it was Orbot and Cubot in the doorway. He sent _them _to watch over me?

"How could she be gone?!" Cubot exclaimed.

In the old days, they were as much friends to me as Metal Sonic was. They were the ones that taught me how to work in the base and any time I had trouble I could go to them. They never ignored me. I felt a bit guilty for hiding from them. I knew that if I escaped from their watchful eyes, they would get the worst of Eggman's temper. Orbot peered into the room,

"How ironic. For once, she vanishes and it's the only time we wanted her to stay!"

I rolled my eyes; guilty feelings were gone. I jumped down and raced past them. They brought a company of guards with them but I was too fast to catch. I guess all that time with Sonic improved my speed. I ran as fast as I could toward the control room, I wanted to open the doors from there but the guards were on my tail. I weaved through labs and hallways, hiding just behind the dark corners, and lost them. There was so much rumbling in my heart, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to scream or laugh. I never thought I'd get this far!

I decided to take my next few steps slow and figure out if there was a weapon I could grab before heading out. I crept into the room nearest me, this place seemed warmer than the others and was filled with a green glow. I peaked around the corner to find this lab was much bigger than the others. Eggman sat with his back toward the entrance, working away on something at his worktable. My first instinct was to turn and run in the other direction before he noticed my presence. Then my eyes caught sight of a glowing gem about the size of my fist contained in a power draining device. Is this what everyone called a chaos emerald? I carefully opened the lid of the machine, reached in and snatched the it. The stone felt warm and seemed to hum against my skin as I picked it up. Something like this in Eggman's hands was too dangerous. I gripped gem tightly and picked up an empty box from the trash to hide the glowing when I entered the hallways. Just before I could step through the door, the old man cleared his throat. I froze, even my heart stopped moving for a second. I glance up, he hadn't turned around yet. Now was my time to bolt. I took for the hallways as quickly as possible, making sure to serpentine through other labs before heading toward the control room.

I couldn't find any weapons around the base that I understood enough to use, so I gave up and snuck up to the control room. The door was unlocked, I wasn't sure if that was a bad sign, but the blood loss I suffered earlier was really wearing me down. I needed to get out soon. I tiptoed in and looked for the console that was in charge of security so I could unlock the front door. He rearranged all the consoles since I left. Typical. I picked the best bet and was about to log into it when I heard someone shout:

"WHERE IS SHE?"

I nearly jumped out of my skin! I panicked and thought Eggman found out I had taken the chaos emerald, but that voice… It wasn't Eggman's, so who was it?

"WHERE'S CHERRY BOMB? YOU BETTER NOT HAVE HURT HER OR YOU'LL HAVE TO ANSWER TO ME! AND MY FISTS!"

Knuckles?! I was flabbergasted. Did he know anything about stealth? I rushed out to the sound of his voice. I guess I didn't need a weapon after all, just a very angry echidna.

The sound of carnage accompanied his shouting as it grew louder and louder. I was getting close. I ran past the cell I escaped and had to stop to catch my breath, it was getting harder to breathe and the air felt hot. I had to find Knuckles soon. I looked into the cell, he busted the door down and probably saw the blood I left behind. No wonder he was so pissed. I started to walk toward his screaming and found him amongst the wreckage of several guard bots.

"I KNOW SHE'S HERE SOM-!" He saw me, "Cherry!" He ran over and looked at my bandaged arm. "Are you okay? Did he do this to you?" He growled.

"I tried t'get... 'way from Metal... Didn't work... Lost blood!" I couldn't catch my breath, and my head was starting to spin.

"I know you did. We followed your clues all the way here. Can you walk?"

I nodded and he started leading me back to the exit.

"Where i-… everyone?" I asked.

"We split up to look for you." He pressed a button and spoke into a watch that Tails obviously made himself. "Guys, I found Cherry! We're heading out right now!"

I heard Sonic's voice respond.

"Great! We'll meet you outside!"

"Is she okay?" Amy asked.

"She's fine." Knuckles answered.

"And I've got a chaos emerald with me!" I stated triumphantly, though a bit winded, and I lifted the box in my hand.

Knuckles looked at me in surprise, "You found a chaos emerald?!"

"I _knew _he had one in the base somewhere! Good work, Cherry!" Tails said through the watch.

I was beaming with pride. Knuckles looked back at me with a warm grin and hung up.

"You did good but we'd better get you out of here."

If I wasn't exhausted, I would've been in tears. I kept my hope this time and my friends were here to rescue me! It was a good thing they were here too; I was getting weaker and weaker. I had to focus all my energy on each step as I navigated my way around the devastation Knuckles had made. Knuckles ran far ahead of me before he even noticed I was falling behind.

"You gonna pick up the pace, grandma?" He asked.

I wanted to reply so badly but I was too busy trying to breathe. He marched over and scooped me up under his arm.

"Sorry, Tiny, but we don't have time to waste!"

"P… Put me down! …I'm fine!" I panted.

"I'll put you down when you stop wheezing!" He retorted.

By the time we got outside the others were all waiting for us on the edge of the forest. It was good to see their smiles again.

"I'm so glad you're okay!" Amy exclaimed and hugged me tight. "When we saw that empty cell, we thought the worst!"

"Well maybe Amy was worried," Knuckles muttered as Amy pulled me from his arms, "but I knew you were okay."

"Yeah right, Knucklehead!" Sonic interjected, "You were charging ahead before we even knew where to go!"

"Yeah-! Well-! Maybe you just took too long!"

"Those sound like racing words! You up for one?"

"Guys!" Amy scolded, "The important thing is that we found Cherry and can bring her back home!"

Knuckles glared at Sonic, and Sonic sent Knuckles a confident smirk. Both silent promises that they would continue this later.

"Actually…" Tails commented, "Now that Metal Sonic knows where our home is, we'll need to move as soon as possible."

"Shouldn't be too hard!" Sonic assured him, "I've already got a spot in mind!"

Knuckles nudged me, "You still got the chaos emerald?"

I handed him the box with a nod. I still wasn't feeling well but it was relieving to at least have my hands empty at this point. Knuckles looked at me cautiously, he could tell I was having a hard time. He looked at the box and opened it. As soon as the lid to the box opened, I was hit with an overwhelming wave of pressure, all sound was muffled and my vision blurred to black as all sense of gravity left. I vaguely remember feeling the ground at my back before drifting off with the pulsing waves that distorted the entire world around me.

* * *

Thank you for reading! I apologize for the wait. This chapter took a bit longer to write.

I really appreciate all your reviews and the fact that you take the time to read.

I do in fact take plot suggestions via PM's - if you have any ideas feel free to send them my way! I'd be happy to hear them!


	8. Chapter 8

**Undesirable Truth, Part 8**

When I woke up, it felt like I had been hit by a truck. My head was pounding and all my extremities felt heavy and ached. My wound was screaming at me and it had an echo in my hand. At least it wasn't so hard to breathe anymore. I began opening my eyes, everything around me felt so soft and warm... too warm. Why was it so hot? I didn't want to wake up just yet, but the heat was becoming unbearable. I reluctantly opened my eyes and found myself under a mountain of pillows! There was just enough of a small opening near my face so that I could breathe but everything else was completely covered. I sat up uneasily, the excess pillows tumbled down from the hammock and onto the floor. I had expected to be on Sonic's couch, but I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in a hammock underneath Mt. Pillow & Blanket. There wasn't any sound of the ocean but the breeze felt the same. I looked around and saw I was resting on the porch of a small cabin with a thatch roof. The hammock was set up between the two support beams for the porch. It was dark inside and really small, not much room for anything aside from a little stove for the kitchen and a little bed in the corner. It all looked hand made aside from the stove. I turned away from the dank little hut and saw it was in the middle of a tropical forest with palm trees swaying and bright greenery everywhere. I wondered if this was the place Sonic was talking about moving to. I finally climbed out of the pillow fort. As I rolled, an avalanche of pillows cascaded behind me. How does one even fit so many pillows in one hammock? And why? I carefully stumbled away from the hut; my legs were like noodles. There wasn't any sign of my friends anywhere.

I stopped in the middle of the forest and wondered if maybe I should climb a tree to get a better view. I was still weary from the night before but my curiosity was getting the better of me. I started to climb the nearest tree and reached the first branch. I was struggling more than I thought I would, my injured arm was hurting with each movement so I stopped to rest. I looked up at the remaining distance I had to climb, I wasn't even half way there. I looked down to start climbing back down and I was too far up to just jump. I didn't have enough strength to climb down either. I sat there for a little while hoping that someone would find me up here. I watched spots of sunlight filter through the leaves and create a pattern on the ground. This wasn't so bad after all and the breeze was a little stronger up in the trees.

Then I heard Knuckles call for me.

"I'm over here!" I called back.

He ran over, he was carrying a net full of mangos and had some branches and leaves stuck in his quills.

"What are you doing up there? I thought you were injured!" He scolded.

"I wanted to see where I was! So sue me for climbing a tree!" I pouted.

"Whatever, just get down here already. I got us breakfast."

I shuffled a bit on my perch and tried to find a good foothold to start climbing down. There wasn't much I could find. I sat back down and admitted:

"…I'm stuck."

He laughed.

"Hey, shut up!" I exclaimed. "It's not my fault you decided to leave me all alone!"

He set down his mango stash and started climbing up to get me as he still continued to chuckle.

"I leave you for one minute and you decide to get stuck in a tree?" He mused.

"Sh-shut up!"

"If I save you from here does that make me your hero? Or an honorary fireman?"

"Either way, you're still a stupid jerk! Maybe I'll kick you before you can reach me!"

"As if that would hurt?" He snorted and hoisted himself up to the branch I was sitting on.

I turned away and grumped at him.

"You want out of the tree or what?" He asked and reached for me.

I huffed and grabbed on. He lifted me onto his shoulders and climbed down. After setting me down he smirked.

"There!" He stated, "Now no more climbing trees for this little kitty." He snickered and patted my head.

"Shut up! I'll pull your tail again!"

He continued to laugh as he bent down to pick up the mangos, I wasn't gonna let him off easy so I yanked his tail as a lesson.

He yelped and straighten his back.

"Hey! You leave that alone!" He exclaimed and batted my hand away.

"Quit laughing then! It's not funny!"

"If you getting stuck in the tree isn't funny, then I'm Froggy!"

"That's it! You've earned it!" I dived for his tail again but he jumped out of the way.

I chased him around to try catching his tail, we danced around in a few circles before he took his breakfast and ran.

"Leave my tail alone!" He shouted.

"Call me a 'little kitty' again and I'll put a knot in that tail!" I bellowed back as I chased him down.

"LITTLE KITTY!"

"GET YOUR SQUIGGLY TAIL BACK HERE, YOU BIG RED JERK!"

"It's not SQUIGGLY!" He dropped the fruit and charged back at me.

I halted and stood ready. If it was a fight he wanted, it was a fight he was gonna get!

As soon as he was in range, I jumped to tackle him. It was enough to knock the wind out of him and he fell over onto his back. We both landed with an "OOF!"

After the dust settled, we looked at each other in surprise. He seemed shocked that I was able to topple him over. I was surprised too. We started to laugh. As he slowly sat up, he ruffled the fur on top of my head and stated,

"Looks like you still have a few surprises left in you."

We got up and sat in front of the little hut to eat breakfast. As we ate together, I remembered to ask my questions.

"So, where are we?"

He grinned and puffed his chest a little bit and replied.

"We're on Angel Island! This is my home!"

"You live in a makeshift shack on a tiny island?" I commented.

His pride deflated immediately.

"It's not a tiny island! And what's wrong with my house? I'd like to see you build a better one!"

He seemed very offended so I decided to leave the subject alone.

"Where is everyone?"

"Hmph…" he settled back down then replied, "Sonic and Tails are busy moving their house somewhere new and Amy's moving too. They all thought it would be better if I took you home with me so you'd have a stable place to recover… How's your arm doing?"

"Oh," I quickly took a look at it, it seems he had replaced the bandages while I was asleep. "It's a little sore still but it feels a lot better than last night."

"Good." He looked relieved, "It looked pretty bad when I stitched it back together."

"YOU PUT STITCHES IN MY ARM?"

"Calm down! It was only a couple to keep it from healing weird, you should be thanking me!"

I started to feel queasy again, I shouldn't have eaten all that mango!

"I can't believe you ruined my arm!" I held it in grief.

"I didn't ruin it! I fixed it! Are you gonna quit belly-aching about it already or are you going to pass out again?"

"I'll have you know I lost a lot of blood! I don't just pass out like that!"

"If it was blood loss then why are you totally fine today?"

"I… I don't know! I'm not a doctor!"

"I'm not either and even I know it wasn't blood loss that made you pass out."

"What are you insinuating?" I growled and narrowed my eyes.

"Uh…"

"Choose your words carefully, echidna!"

"…Maybe yer just a-!"

"Don't say it!"

He snickered, "A scaredy-cat."

"AAAH! That's it!" I lunged at him and started pulling his quills.

"Ow! Hey! What do you think you're doing?"

"Teaching you a lesson!"

He laughed and shoved me back, "That's cute, but fun's over. I've got work to do and you've gotta rest! And all this tree climbing and chasing me around probably hasn't been helping."

He picked me up under his arm and started carrying me from the house toward the thicker part of the woods.

"Hey! Put me down! Where are you taking me?" I demanded.

"I'm taking you to the Master Emerald." He stated. "It's my job to look after it and I **obviously **can't leave you alone or else you'll get stuck in another tree!" He started to snicker again.

"Hey! That's not funny!" I punched his gut to try getting him to drop me, he only flinched.

"Pfff! You trying to hit me? All that does is tickle!"

"Shut up!"

He continued to laugh as he kept walking.

Amongst the trees there were gigantic mushrooms that were just as tall, if not taller than the trees themselves. I wondered if it was healthy to hang around them or not. In the distance there as a stone pyramid hidden within the foliage with a large green gem displayed at the top.

"Is that the Master Emerald?" I asked.

"Yup."

"Why are you supposed to look after it?"

"I'm the guardian!" He said proudly.

"Mm'kay… does it do anything special or is it just a big shiny rock?"

"Well, sometimes- and _only _sometimes, if someone pure of heart asks the Master Emerald for help it will grant them power."

"…Can I ask it to make me taller and stronger than you?"

He chuckled, "Nice try, Tiny! But it only listens to the pure of heart, remember?"

"I can be pure of heart! Just gotta make sure you aren't around first." I elbowed his stomach and he chuckled again.

As we were getting closer and closer to the pyramid my aches and pains were getting worst. My whole arm felt like it was burning. It was getting hard to breathe again and my limbs felt thick and heavy, like they were filled with cement. Knuckles must have heard me wheezing.

"You doing okay, Tiny?"

"I don't know… It's hard to breathe."

"Hm… When we get to the top of the shrine the air should be clearer. I guess you're more sensitive to the mushroom spores than I thought."

"Who you calling sensitive, Big Baby?!" I jabbed his stomach again.

We weren't even two steps closer and everything felt so hot. I asked Knuckles to set me down so I could rest on the ground for a bit. My vision was getting dark and all my other senses were being swallowed up in what I could only describe as a pulsing pressure wave that kept hammering me over and over. I looked at my hand, it looked like it was burned or something. Wasn't that the hand that held the chaos emerald last night?

"…Chaos energy." I managed to mutter.

"Tiny...?" Knuckles asked as he helped me sit up, "Geez, your heating up… Was it the mangos?"

I was too busy gasping for air to answer but I gave him a look that said enough. The mangos? As if.

"I'll… take you down to the beach! The air should be clear there!"

As he was picking me back up, I felt a surge in the pressure oppressing me, it was like my body gave up trying to function through it.

When my senses returned, I heard the sound of ocean waves and the wind whipping at my face. I cracked my eyes open to find that Knuckles had rushed me to the shore of the island and was carrying me waist deep into the waves.

"…You're gonna toss me into the ocean?" I croaked.

He looked at me with concern, "You doing okay? I didn't know what else to do! When you said something about chaos energy, thought maybe getting you as far from the Master Emerald was best…"

I lifted my burned hand to show him what I meant, "I held the chaos emerald in this hand last night."

He took a closer look, "Hm, you think the chaos emerald did this to you?"

I nodded.

"But that doesn't make any sense! Why would…?" He stopped himself and thought for a moment, he turned very solemn. "Did Eggman do anything to you before we could save you?"

"No, I didn't give him the chance!" I smirked wanly. My condition wasn't improving much but I could at least breathe and talk for a little while.

He smiled, "I bet you didn't! You feeling better?"

"Not by much. But I think I'll be alright."

"I guess in that case, I'll take you back to the house and you can rest there while I go guard the Master Emerald. Think you can resist climbing any trees until I get back?"

"I'll do my very best…" I griped.

I spent the whole rest of the day napping in the hammock. Knuckles never did explain what Mt. Pillow was all about, but I didn't have any strength left in me to ask. For a majority of my naps, I was bombarded hour after hour by the same pressure that I suspected was chaos energy. I couldn't get any rest because of it. By the time Knuckles had come back to check on me I was considerably weaker. He pressed his palm to my forehead; I was sweating buckets and shivering.

"You have a fever. This isn't good!" He muttered and rushed into the house.

I didn't dare turn my head to look, even doing that made me dizzy. I could barely hear past the muffling chaos energy, but I knew Knuckles was rummaging through his belongings to find something. I was fading in and out of consciousness. He came back a held up something to my face, it was a cup, I think? He urged me to drink from it, the liquid inside was the worst thing I had ever tasted. I cringed as soon as it reached my tongue and I spit it out. He was not happy about that. Before he could urge me again, I willingly slipped into unconsciousness, anything to keep that nasty grog away was welcome.

Round three of waking up in a new place, I was feeling significantly better. Cured in fact. I was able to sit up, my clothes stuck to my back with the residue of cold sweat from my fever but my head still ached. My vision was a bit blurry at first, but as it cleared, I saw I was in a little clearing in the forest next to a shallow pool of clean water. With all the perspiring I had been doing, I was extremely thirsty. My throat was so dry that I could hardly swallow. I shuffled over to the pool and started to drink. I really didn't care if it was safe to drink at this point. I used a little bit to clean my face then I looked around for Knuckles. He had to be here right? He was this time thankfully. I saw him asleep next to where I was resting. I looked up at the sky, it seemed it was dawn. Did I really get sick for an entire day?

From the bushes I heard a rustling noise, I turned to look in a panic then saw a small round creature peaking out from the underbrush. It almost seemed like a little baby. Soon there were more peaking through the leaves. I counted at least twenty! I thought maybe I should wake Knuckles in case these small baby looking things were not something I should be interacting with. But when I turned to wake him, I found that they had already reached him and were playing with his quills. Snuggling up under his arms and generally being affectionate. Were they his pets? A red one with little dreads, a white crest mark and a tail that looked just like Knuckles' waddled its way over to me and looked up as if to challenge me. I squinted my eyes back.

"Hello there…" I greeted cantankerously.

It flinched back then pouted, I laughed, it pouted just like Knuckles too!

"Oh~! You must be his favorite!" I teased and poked his little cheek.

He didn't seem to like that so I settled with gently petting the top of his head. He liked that a little better.

Now the other creatures were making their way over to inspect me as the newcomer. They seemed to like me better now that I was a source of pets and attention. Soon they were climbing all over me and cooing for my attentiveness as I tried my best to keep up with all the demands. All the while Knuckles' favorite sat in my lap like a little king. With all the noise, Knuckles started to wake up. As soon as he groaned and turned over. All the little babies cheered and ran over to him, now cooing at him to get him to wake up and play. They definitely were his pets. He woke up with a smile and said.

"You guys are all up already? You must be really excited to see me, huh?"

He opened one eye and gently patted the head of one of the little ones that was nudging his cheek to wake him. He then slowly sat up and stretched his arms but as soon as he saw me here, the gruff persona came back up and his content smile disappeared.

"Your pets are really cute!" I stated.

"They're not my pets! They're chao. The island's chao. I just hang around them a lot, that's all."

He looked over and saw Mini-Knuckles was still in my lap and tisked as if he had seen a traitor.

"Are you feeling any better?" He asked.

"Yeah, way better! You didn't pour that gross stuff down my throat while I was asleep, did you?"

"First of all, that 'gross stuff' was a healing tea passed down by generations of echidnas and it's better than any modern medicine by a long shot! Second of all, no! I didn't. Wish I'd thought of that though…"

"Are we off the island or something? I don't feel the chaos energy anymore."

"We're still on the island. You can thank the chao for that."

I looked at him questioningly, how did these little baby bloops help with my illness?

Knuckles stood up and stretched his back, "I'm going into the forest to grab some breakfast. You wanna come along?"

Before I could answer all the little chao cheered in agreement and started following him toward the forest.

"Wait, I didn't mean you guys! Come on!" He chuckled, the smile from earlier slowly making its way back as he picked up handfuls of them and tried to corral them back into the clearing. They climbed out of his arms and scurried back to the forest like little ducklings.

"They're a stubborn bunch, aren't they?" I commented then stood up with Mini-Knux in my arms and started to follow them. "Why don't we all go together?"

The chao cheered. How could anyone say no?

We searched the woods for a worthy breakfast. Knuckles did most of the searching while I watched, it was pretty entertaining. He'd look around for fruit and the chao would bring him branches and rocks to look at.

"No, guys! Fruit! Breakfast. We can't play right now." He said and climbed up a tree to look for fruit.

He climbed like a natural! I didn't really notice his skills the first time because I was so embarrassed but he could climb a ten-foot-tall tree and come back down in the matter of a minute and not even break a sweat. Maybe if I felt better later, he could show me his secret.

"Any luck?" I asked when he climbed back down.

"No, I was hoping for more mangos but I guess these guys ate most of the fruit around here. That's fine though, I think I know a place." He brushed himself off and noticed that Mini-Knux was in my arms. "Looks like he warmed up to you pretty quick… He usually doesn't like being held."

"He and I have that in common! What's his name anyway?"

"He doesn't have one."

"What?!" I asked incredulously.

"I don't name any of the chao! They're not mine, remember?"

"But he looks just like you! He has to be your pet!"

"Well he isn't! He just hung around me too much, that's why he looks like that!"

"Okay, then he'll be _my _pet! And then _I'm _gonna name him!"

Knuckles scoffed, "You can't do that…"

I lifted Mini Knuckles up and looked right in his cute, little, adorable eyes.

"I name you…! Knuckles Junior!" I started to laugh.

"Very funny…" Knuckles grumbled. "You wanna help me find food or are you gonna baby the chao all day?"

"Why not both?"

"You can't do both! Let's go!" He started on his way through the jungle and I followed with our little entourage behind us. We went deeper into the thick of the forest where the trees were much older and therefore bigger. He picked a tree and climbed up so high into the branches that I couldn't even see him anymore.

I waited below, looking for him until a pear dropped from above and hit my head. Pear after pear fell from the swaying branches above each one landing on me with a thud. I tried to avoid them as the chao celebrated and reached up to catch their falling breakfast. I rushed to the trunk to avoid getting hit by any more fruit, I could've sworn he was aiming for me. After he climbed down (and snickering the whole way, I might add) we all sat down to eat. I could finally ask him my questions.

"How did the chao help with my chaos energy problem?"

Knuckles answered between bites. "Chao naturally collect in places with high chaos energy and disperse it. Those places are called chao gardens. After the chaos energy is leveled out, they move on to the next one. Not sure how it works but I hoped bringing you to them would help. Looks like it did."

"So basically, I was being poisoned by chaos energy and they sucked it all up?"

Knuckles nodded.

"How'd they do that?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I think they just absorb it by being there? Maybe they store it like little batteries or something. Tails would probably know, but I know for a fact that chao really like chaos energy and that they have a knack for calming it down." He got really quiet then said, "You had me really worried yesterday…"

I sighed, "I know… Do you want me to leave the island?"

"No. I just… didn't think keeping you around the Master Emerald would be a problem. I mean, it's never really happened before! It's just that… if it hadn't been for the chao you would've…" He looked extremely troubled; his fists were clenched tightly.

"Hey, don't go thinking like that! There's no way you could've known and I probably would've been okay anyway."

"Cherry, listen!" His eyes pierced right through me; did they always look that way? "When I brought you here to my island you became my responsibility! I don't ever want to see you hurt like that again and I'm going to make sure that doesn't happen, understand?"

I was extremely unsure of how to answer or what he meant by this.

He settled back down and his eyes returned to his half-eaten pear, "By the way, I want to start training you to fight. I don't want you to get stuck in another spot where you can't defend yourself either!"

Training? With Knuckles? ...So, this was how I'd die.

"Do I really have to?"

"Yes."

"Well, okay… Just try to take it easy on me-"

"I won't."

"…Thanks."

I was terrified at the thought of training with Knuckles. As we returned to his little makeshift hut, I dreaded the experience though the constant presence of the chao did a lot to soften the edge. Knuckle brought me inside and rummaged through a dusty old chest.

"First things first, you can't train in a blood-stained dress."

I looked down at my clothes in surprise. Oh yeah, I really was still in the dress. I hoped the stains would wash out but it looked pretty bad.

"Here!" He threw an old T-shirt my way. "You can use my winter clothes for now."

"You only wear clothes in the winter?" I commented as I held the shirt to look at it. It was threadbare with patches and stains here and there. It was definitely too big for me, but it would work as a makeshift dress for now.

"Well, yeah. It gets too cold not to." Knuckles took the chao and stepped outside so I could change.

Once I had, I walked out to find Knuckles had drawn a circle in the dirt in front of the house and was standing in the middle. I waited.

"You ready to train or what?" He asked.

"What's with the circle?"

"It's to keep the chao out. I told them not to cross the line."

I snickered and stepped in.

"Okay, let's go over the basics." Knuckles began. "You might not have a lot of strength yet but if you get the basics down, then that won't matter." He stepped over to me. "Show me your fists."

I clenched my hands and held them up for him to look. He held my left hand and pointed to the knuckles of my index and middle fingers.

"You're first two knuckles are what you punch with. Aim those at whatever you're punching at and you'll do the damage you want." I nodded and he let my hand go. He held up the palm of his right hand and continued. "Okay, I want you to punch my hand as hard as you can."

"Wha-! But I! I can't do that!"

He chuckled, "Relax, it's not like it's gonna hurt or anything."

"You sayin' I ain't strong?"

He smirked and his voice raised several octaves, it became obvious he was mocking me, "YoU sAid iT nOt Me-!" He batted his eyelashes as he said it and pursed his lips to try making that kitty face that I SWEAR I DO NOT MAKE!

I punched him in the nose as hard as I could. He backed up a couple of steps and held his face. I thought for sure he was gonna be mad but he started to laugh and looked back at me.

"That was pretty good! Even if it did feel like a little kitten swat!"

"Shut up! It's not funny! I'll hit you again!"

Knuckles was a very patient and methodical teacher. He showed me how to stand for a fight, how to punch properly and encouraged me to practice on him, something I was very keen on doing. We spent the whole day training! To anyone else it would have been a chore but the more we did it the more fun we had. Once I had the basics down, we started sparring. Although by sparring I mean, he encouraged me to try out new moves and use what I had learned while he play-fought at me. I would jab him in the chest and he'd chuckle and swipe at me as slowly as he could. I ducked underneath and jabbed him again.

"Good job using your size to your advantage! Staying close keeps me from using my height against you." He commented. "You ready for this?" He asked and slowly jabbed at me.

I ducked down as quick as I could and landed a left hook into his stomach and he actually had to back away.

"Oof, I actually felt that! You're getting pretty good! How's your arm?"

I quickly looked at the bandage, there was some blood soaking through.

"Oh…" I started to tug at the wrappings.

"Let's take a rest for now. I'll wrap that back up for you."

He started a little camp fire and threw down a log for us to sit on. I sat down and he brought over a box full of medical supplies. I watched the fire grow as he unwrapped my bandage, I didn't dare look in case I caught a glimpse of the stitch work he did. The air was gaining a chill as the sun was slowly setting. The chao who had been playing their own games all day were now all tuckered out and curling up to sleep.

"It's healing up pretty well." Knuckles commented.

He got out a little stone bowl and poured in a dark green powder from a plastic bag he had in the box. Before I could ask him what it was for, he spat into the bowl mixed the spit and powder together, smeared some onto his thumb and was about to apply it to my wound before I jerked my arm away.

"What are you doing?" I nearly shouted. "What even is that stuff?!"

"It's disinfectant! I'm helping your arm!"

"No way! That stuff's gonna _give _me an infection!"

"No, it's not-!"

"You spit in it!"

"Of course, I did! That's how it works! Will you just hold still already?"

"You're not putting that on my arm!"

"You wanna get better or not?"

I pouted in response.

"Remember all that punching you did? Without this stuff on your arm it's gonna hurt a lot more tomorrow!"

I sighed. "…Fine." I gave him my arm and he started to apply the paste. It stung on contact but at least that meant it was working...I think. "What is that stuff anyway?"

"There's a special plant that grows on the island, I grind it up and use it for stuff like this."

"How'd you figure out to do that?"

"My ancestors did."

"Oh… So, how come Amy, Sonic and Tails and well… basically everyone have houses and you've got this little shack?"

He was quiet for a long time. He finished with the paste and was now wrapping up my arm in a new bandage when he answered.

"There's no one else living on the island so I had to build everything myself. I have a few other living places but this one was closest to the Master Emerald so…" He finished tying the wrapping. "There we go."

"Wait! You live here all alone?"

"Yep."

"Why? Wouldn't you rather live in the city with everyone else?"

"I never liked the city, it's too loud and crowded." He set down his things and settled down on the ground, using the log as a head-rest. "All those bright lights that are always on, the constant noise, and just the way it feels to be there… It's not the life for me."

"But what about the village?" I took a seat next to him, "That place was pretty peaceful."

He chuckled, "You mean before you let all hell break loose? I'm the guardian of the Master Emerald, I can't just stop living on Angel Island! Who would protect the Master Emerald if I'm gone?"

"That never stopped you from the leaving the island before." I sniped.

"Th-those were different! I was only leaving for a short time! Besides! I always make sure to hide the Master Emerald before I leave!"

"So why don't you hide it and then live off island?"

He sent me a stern glare, "I belong here, Tiny! There's nothing changing that."

I dropped the subject for now, he was as stubborn as usual. We had some of the leftover pears for dinner and settled into the hut for the night. He took the bare mattress in the corner of the shack, there were piles of pillows and blankets on top. That explains Mt. Pillow a bit. He probably slept with as many as he could to feel comfortable. I climbed back into the hammock and tried to sleep.

There were a lot of strange noises at night, some constant, some only a one-time thing that would startle me and keep me awake for hours. On top of all that, it was cold in the hammock. I curled up into a tight ball to try to keep some warmth but there was nothing I could do to sleep. Eventually I climbed out of the hammock to go wake Knuckles. As soon as my feet hit the floor, he whispered:

"You're still up?"

I nearly jumped out of my skin.

"How come you slept like a rock when I was working on Metal, but you wake up at the sound of a chao's sneeze now?!"

He sat up and rubbed his eye, "I'm the guardian, it's what I do. Why are you still up?"

"It's cold!" I whined.

"You need a blanket?"

"I had three!" I heard a screech from the woods and jumped.

"Don't worry it's just an owl." He muttered. "…You're scared too, aren't you?"

I couldn't see his face but I knew he was getting all smug about it.

"Quiet you! It's not my fault I've never lived in a shrieking jungle!"

I could hear his muffled snickered before he said, "Alright, alright, you can sleep next to me. It's warmer on this side of the house anyway."

"You mean _shack_? Besides, I don't wanna share no stinky bed with you! You're a big jerk!"

"Suit yourself~" He turned over to go back to sleep.

A breeze drifted in under the door and stole yet another piece of what little warmth I had left.

I huffed, "Okay, scoot over!"

He made room for me on the worn-out mattress and I snuggled in. It was nice to be warm again at least.

"Hey! Keep your frozen tail to yourself!" He grunted.

I started to laugh and tried to push him out of the bed.

"Heeeey!" He tried to push me off instead.

I dug into the corner to keep my ground but got lost in a pile of pillows. He sat up.

"Are you gonna let me sleep or are you gonna try to kick me out of my own bed all night?" He huffed.

"I can do both!" I retorted and tried to sit up, but the mass of pillows was an impressive force to reckon with. "Why do you have so many pillows?!" I exclaimed and tried to thrash my way out of the sinkhole I was slipping into.

He started to laugh and reached over to help me out. "Too small for even my pillows, are you?" He pulled me up and threw a blanket over me. "There! Now go to sleep."

"Don't tell me what to do…" I muttered and curled up in the corner to sleep.

I felt a lot better sleeping next to Knuckles, somehow, I felt safer. Protected. The sounds of the forest creatures bothered me less and less as my heart-rate dropped. I could close my eyes without worrying if something was going to sneak up on me. The warmth under the blankets and pillows protected me from the chill of the night as my breathing steadied into a metered rhythm that marched me into a much-needed rest.

* * *

Thank you for reading! :D

Part 9 will be out soon! Feel free to let me know what you think about the story so far!


	9. Chapter 9

**Undesirable Truth, Part 9**

I was woken up by a sun beam in my eye. The golden rays of the early morning were pouring in from the windows and disrupted my sleep. The air outside my blanket was so cold, it was threatening to sink through the fabric and into my skin. I curled tighter into the warm spot I made overnight; it was a pretty sizable one considering how little bed I had to work with. All those pillows really made a difference. I snuggled deeper into the bed, the pillows were so warm and cushy that I knew I'd be sleeping in until noon if I was allowed. Everything was so calm; the birds were gently chirping outside and the sun was rising ever steadily. I buried my face into a nearby pillow to block the light and return to my dreams. The bed seemed to wrap itself around me as I nestled in tight. My chest slowly rose and fell with my breathing as the wispy fingers of my dreams were drumming back in. Then suddenly, the pillow snuggled back!

My eyes shot open. I looked at the pillow I was cuddling and saw Knuckles staring back! His eyes just as wide as mine. We were so close together that our noses were nearly touching. Before even another second passed, we shoved each other back as far away as we could and tried to pretend nothing ever happened. I turned over and tried to go back to sleep with a grumble while he started to sit up. He stretched out his back and his arms with a groan. My warm spot was gone now, it was a little harder getting back to sleep, but I was determined. I loved sleep too much.

"You gonna sleep-in all morning?" Knuckles grumbled and yanked at my blanket.

I clung to it as tight as I could and rolled up to keep him from taking it from me. He sighed.

"Hey, Breakfast burrito! It's time to get up!" He poked my back.

I grunted in reply.

"If you don't get up, I'm not giving you breakfast."

I grunted again. I could live without breakfast.

"Alright, you asked for it!" Before I knew it, he hoisted me up from the bed and started carrying me outside. He started to snicker. This was bad.

"Hey! Where are we going?" I asked and started to scramble out of his hold.

"You'll see!" He said, doing his best to hide his amusement.

We had a grappling match as he continued to walk into the forest. I pushed against his shoulders to make some room to wiggle out but he wrapped his arms tighter. I shoved my hand into his face to block his eyes while squirming out of his grasp, but it seemed he knew where he was going without any vision. I yanked my leg free from the blanket and kicked his shoulder to get him to put me down. He was finally losing his grip until he tossed me forward.

I fell to the ground with a splash. It took me by surprise. I thrashed the blanket off which kept me under and I shot to the surface. Sputtering and coughing, I looked around to find out what he'd done. He threw me into a stream!

He was laughing hysterically by the time I had scrambled to the bank. I picked up a stick and threw it at him.

"You big jerk! You wanna fight!?" I exclaimed and scurried over to punch him.

He smiled wide and stood ready to spar, "Let's see what you've got, Tiny!"

I quickly turned around and picked up a hefty fallen branch then went back at him.

"Hey! Wait a minute that's cheating! Put that down!"

"There's no rules when you toss me in a river!" I screamed as I chased him down.

He's lucky I was injured and couldn't keep up.

After we finally calmed down, Knuckles gave me a bar of soap and commented,

"Go back to the stream and use this. You stink!"

"Oh, thanks." I retorted, "So where do you usually clean up around here?"

"The stream."

"For real? No Way! I ain't bathing in no stream!"

He started to collect the pillows and blankets from the house in a straw basket that he probably made himself.

"Yes, you will! Or I'm not letting you stink up any more of my stuff!"

"But a _stream?_ It's so out in the open what if…"

He looked back at me over his shoulder with aggravation as he continued his chore, "Listen, I've got a lot of crap to do around here and this is the last thing I need."

He tossed me new clothes to barrow and that was the end of it. I didn't have much of a choice.

It really sucked being in that stream, everything was cold and every once in a while, I'd see a fish close by and freak out. I was not made for outdoor living! When I got back, the chao were all glad to see me. They rushed over and started tugging at me to get me to go play. I'm kinda glad I didn't let them follow me to the stream because they would've been doing this the whole time I was trying to clean up.

"Oh, hey guys!" I cooed, "Where's Knuckles at? Did you chase him away for me? Good babies!"

As I was petting a couple of them, Knuckles Jr. ran up and shoved them out of the way. Apparently, he missed me the most.

"Hey! Don't be mean to your buddies!" I scolded and picked him up to better pinch his cheek. "They missed me just as much as you did! You should be nice!"

"That's funny coming from you." Knuckles commented.

The basket of blankets and pillows he had was now a basket full of soggy blankets and pillows. He set it down and starting tying up a rope between a couple of nearby palm trees.

"You're one to talk, too!" I scowled.

He casually shook his head and started hanging the blankets up to dry one by one.

"Make yourself useful and go grab that rack in the house." He suggested.

"Do I get breakfast if I do?"

"Breakfast was two hours ago!"

"You ate without me?!"

"No, but the chao did. You gonna get that rack or what?"

"Fine, fine! I'll go get it, keep yer tail on!"

I went inside and looked for whatever it was he wanted. Sure enough, there was an empty wooden shelf resting on the side of the wall. It looked like a gigantic wooden paper organizer. As I grabbed it, I saw a green fabric jacket hanging near the door, it had big pockets and looked warm. I never fully recovered from the cold stream so I put it on. It was super big on me but if I rolled up the sleeves it worked like a charm.

"You find it yet?" Knuckles called.

"Yeah. Yeah. I got it!" I yanked the wooden shelf out of its place and carried it over.

He didn't even take a moment to look, he just took the contraption from me and started placing the damp pillows into it.

"Found my sweater, huh?" He commented.

"Yeah, it's mine now!" I teased.

He chuckled, "You can have it, that thing was too tight on me anyway."

A couple of chao waddled over to see how the grown-ups were doing, I scooped them up and put one in each pocket of the jacket. A perfect fit! The chao seemed to like it too. I just had to make sure I moved carefully from now on.

Knuckles finished with the pillows and picked up the now empty basket.

"Alright, Tiny. Let's get going."

"Where we off to?" I asked as I started following behind him.

"I've got more chores to do. If you help, we'll have enough time to spar at the end of the day."

I didn't think it would hurt to help so I continued to follow with our little gaggle of chao behind us. Knuckles led us to a clearing in the forest and that's when I saw the most unbelievable thing on the island.

"You have a **garden**?"

"Well, yeah! Where else do you think I get my food from?"

"Well, I mean… all the food you've shown me so far was fruit so…"

He scoffed and knelt down to take a look at his tomatoes, "I can't live only on fruit, you know."

I shrugged.

He picked up a gardening shovel, a pair of work gloves and a seed packet.

"You wanna help me plant something new today?"

"Sure, I guess…"

My eyes wandered over the garden to see if I could identify anything familiar. Back in my old life, I tried my hand with plants and it didn't fair well. I was given a cactus and I managed to kill it through ways I've yet to determine. Then my eyes caught something entertaining.

"You have a cowboy hat?" I asked excitedly and rushed over to pick it up from it's resting place on a scarecrow.

"It's my work hat! It's not a cowboy hat!"

I immediately put it on, "You have a cowboy hat!"

"It's not-!"

"Heh heh, look! I'm you! Knuckles. The Yeehaw Man!"

"You mean cowboy?"

"I think you mean… Yeehaw. Man."

"…Whatever. I'm not a-!"

"Say it!"

"What?"

"Go full yeehaw!"

"No."

"Can I get a 'yeehaw'?"

His shoulders slumped and he grumbled. I wiggled my eyebrows at him and he only shoved me back.

"I'm **not **a cowboy! It's **not **a cowboy hat! And I **don't **say 'yee-!"

"YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAW!"

"Will you knock that off!? I'm trying to work here!"

He shuffled to a corner of the garden and refused to look at me, he was too busy pretending to be working. I sauntered over.

"So, what are we doing?"

"I'm planting broccoli…"

"Need help?"

"Not unless you take the hat off!"

"Nuh-uh, not an option!"

He set his spade down to glare at me.

"That happens to be _my _hat! I never gave you permission to wear it!"

"Is this because I called it a yeehaw hat?"

"If you're trying to trick me into saying 'yeehaw' it's not gonna work!"

"Why are you being such a fuss-bucket?"

He turned back to the soil and started digging, "I'm not a fuss-bucket!"

I watched him aggressively move dirt around for a little while. Neither of us wanted to talk. I sighed and took the hat off; he didn't seem to notice so I placed it on his head.

"Fiiiine! It looks better on you anyway." I sighed.

He looked over, the brim shaded his eyes and it took everything in me to keep 'yeehaw' from escaping my mouth. He smiled.

"Let's get to work." He handed me the work gloves and we started tending the garden together.

Taking care of a garden was harder than I initially thought. Even ones that are well kept need a lot of work. He had me pull up weeds, something I thought I was good at until he started to panic.

"What are you doing?! That's my mint! You don't pull those up!"

"Sorry! I didn't know what wasn't a weed! I don't know what good plants look like!" I admitted.

"Don't touch my plants anymore!" he growled and did his best to replant the mint I pulled up.

I threw off the work gloves, this wasn't the kind of work for me anyway! It was frustrating, uncomfortable and dirty. All three things I hated.

When he was done saving his mint, he breathed a sigh of relief and looked over at me, expecting me to come back to work but I crossed my arms. No way was I putting myself through that again, not if he was just going to shout at me if I messed up.

"Throwing in the towel already?" He commented.

"I'll just kill your stupid plants anyway." I pouted.

He shook his head then focused on burying the broccoli seeds.

"You wanna know the best way to save a dying plant?" he asked.

"How?"

"Blood."

I froze for a few minutes.

"You're not burying me in your garden! I'll curse it, I'll haunt it, everything! You won't even be able to plant flowers!"

"Calm down, that's not what I meant!" He grumbled then pointed to a sapling at the very end of the garden. "You see that?"

I squinted at it.

"It was about to die cuz the chao kept playing on it. You know what I did to save it? I buried your old bandages under it and now it's strong and healthy!"

I looked closer at the little tropical tree; it certainly did look healthy. At least it looked that way to me.

"…You gotta name the tree after me!"

"What? No!"

"I saved it! That means it's mine!"

"You didn't plant it! Besides! It'll probably die of embarrassment if it's named after you!"

"I wouldn't have it any other way!" I replied smugly then took a closer look at one of its leaves, the tree was no taller than me and was basically just a stalk with a few big leaves growing from the top. "What kind of tree is it anyway?"

"A banana tree."

"Oh… I hate bananas."

"In that case, we're having _only_ bananas for the next three weeks!"

"Oh yeah?! I'll rip this tree up right now!"

"Don't you dare!"

I wrapped my hands around the stalk, ready to tug, "I'll do it!"

Knuckles shot up from his work in no time and yanked my hands from the tree, "Oh no you don't!" He picked me up under his arm and carried me away from it, "That's it! You're banned from my garden!"

"What?! But what about helping you with your chores?"

"You're too dangerous to my plants! You're banned for life!"

"But-!"

He set me down under one of the bordering trees, making sure to annunciate each of his words with firmness. "Banned. For. Life!"

While Knuckles continued to work on his garden, I played games with the chao and fed them lunch. It was better than getting yelled at for trying to help anyway. I was teaching Knuckles Jr. how to play hopscotch until I heard one of the other chao start crying. Knuckles and I jumped to our feet immediately. A little blue and white chao was playing on a nearby rock when she slipped and got hurt. Knuckles ran over and gently picked her up with me close behind. She was crying her tiny heart out but neither of us could see where she was hurt.

"There, there…" Knuckles murmured and gently rocked her. "You're okay now. I'm here."

The little chao whimpered and snuggled into his arms. I was more than surprised that mister tough guy was just a big softie. He gave me a glare.

"Don't give me that look! She doesn't stop crying unless I hold her!"

"Does she have a name?" I couldn't help but smirk.

Knuckles sighed, "…her name is Queenie."

"Ah ha! So, you did name them!"

"I didn't name her! That's just what she was called!" He grunted.

"So… she not yours?"

"I found her all beat up in an alley on my way home a couple years ago. 'Queenie' was the name on her collar."

"Oh…" I looked down at the little chao, no wonder she cried so much, she must have had a hard life before she was found. "I'm glad you found her."

"I am too, she was in really bad shape…"

"How bad?"

"She was bruised all over and thin as a twig, I could hardly pick her up without being afraid of breaking her in half. I couldn't even tell what kind of chao she was."

"Looks like you've been taking good care of her."

Knuckles nodded, "She needed it too! It makes my blood boil just thinking about what kind of home she must've been living in! If I ever find out who it was…!"

I could hear him grind his teeth at the thought but he continued to gently hold the little chao while she started to calm down. I leaned closer, she was a little apprehensive about that and continued to hug Knuckles tightly.

"Are those angel wings?" I asked as I looked at the tiny wings on her back.

"Kind of, she's an angel chao. She's got a little halo too, see?" He poked the halo floating over her head. I looked at the other chao for comparison, they all had little floating dots over their heads but hers was in the shape of a halo.

"Oh, that's pretty cute!" I replied.

Knuckles cut his eyes toward me with a seriousness that he seems to carry around for special occasions.

"Listen, I've got a reputation to keep, so don't go spreading this around!"

"Don't worry, I'd rather keep this to myself anyhow." I reached out to pet Queenie and she shied away.

Knuckles grinned, "Ha! She's smart enough to know you're nothing but trouble!" He gently set her down and let her go back to playing with the other chao while he finished up the gardening.

Knuckles took his time getting his mini farm in order as the afternoon reached peak laziness. I found a comfy spot to lounge in. And before I knew it, I was napping. I was only asleep for a few minutes when Knuckles shook me awake.

"Hey, wake up! Sonic's here to pick you up." He said.

I sat up, "Already?" I looked around for Sonic but I didn't see him anywhere. "Where is he?"

"I saw his plane fly overhead. It won't be long until he comes along and I'd _like _to keep my chao _and _my garden a secret!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah…" I mumbled as I started getting up, "But don't I need the chao to disperse the chaos energy or whatever?"

"Oh right…" He grumbled then looked pensively at the ground for a minute then said, "Bring two but don't let them out of your pockets! And if Sonic asks, just say they belong to the island, okay?"

I picked up Knuckles Junior and Queenie and set them in my pockets, Junior snuggled in and looked up at me contentedly but Queenie squirmed and cried as she reached for Knuckles. I picked her up and handed her to him. Then I had a sneaky idea.

"Hey!"

"What?"

"What if we hid in the jungle and pounced on him?"

"…I like the way you think! Let's go!" Knuckles snickered.

We snuck our way toward Sonic's plane and hid in the trees nearby. Sonic got down from the pilot seat and stretched out his arms, then his legs. It looked like he was getting ready for a run.

"What if he runs past us?" I asked.

Knuckles shrugged. He wasn't going to be much help in this surprise party, so I set Junior and Queenie in his arms then climbed higher into the taller branches that spread out toward the neighboring tree. He was about to follow but I waved him back and got an annoyed glare in response. Sonic started to run into the forest just under our tree, I jumped from the branches and landed on him. I really didn't think this part through. Our heads knocked together and we toppled to the ground with a thud.

"OW!" Sonic exclaimed and rubbed the bump on his head. "Cherry? …You know, this is the kind of stuff I'd expect from Knucklehead not you!"

"This was all her idea!" Knuckles said, beaming with pride.

Sonic gave me the stink-eye. "Why'd you have to go and let him rub off on you like that?"

I laughed, "Why'd you make me wait here so long?"

Sonic stood up and brushed himself off, "It took us a while to get the house moved, but it's all set now!"

"You moved the whole house?!"

"Yeah, we put it on wheels and just rolled it to the next place!"

I blinked and tried to imagine what Sonic's house on wheels must've looked like. Was he being serious or sarcastic?

"What, don't believe me?" Sonic teased.

I shrugged, "I guess it makes sense, your house basically looked like a trailer more than anything else anyway."

He laughed and roped his arm around my neck and started tugging my ears. "What's that about a trailer?"

"Ah! Knuckles! Get him off me!" I exclaimed and tried to push him away.

Knuckles took a seat under a tree and casually remarked, "Remember what I showed you. Hands in his face and shove."

I pressed the palm of my hand against Sonic's face but my other hand was having a hard time reaching.

"Keep shoving. There you go." Knuckles commented.

Sonic laughed as I kept pushing on his face, "Whoa, whoa, easy now! That's my best feature!"

I was able to shove Sonic back but he wouldn't let go. We stayed that way for a little while until Knuckles yawned.

"Are you gonna take her home already? She's been a pain since day one."

"Dur dur dur, I'm Knuckles and I like to whine about _everything_." I retorted and put all my weight into shoving Sonic back.

Sonic started to laugh, "Whoa! Since when were there two Knuckleheads?"

"Keep talking, that's a one-way ticket back into the stream!" Knuckles grumbled.

I was finally able to create enough space to press my foot to Sonic's chest and shove. He stumbled backward and I was finally free. I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Two days on the island with Knuckles and all he's taught you to do is shove? What's next, pulling?" Sonic remarked.

"You should watch me beat him up in sparring!"

"Oh yeah, did he make you sign a release form?"

"Yeah! He never stands a chance! Wait, release form…?"

Knuckles grumbled and got back on his feet, "Well, I'd better go back to my work. I've still got chores to finish."

"You mean there's _more?_" I whined.

"Of course there's more! I've still got to check on all my traps."

I could've sworn I was awake when I heard that, "Your **what?**"

Despite Knuckles' protests, Sonic and I followed him to a part of the forest that was full of ancient ruins. The stones of something greater rested toppled down, unrecognizable and scattered between the trees and underbrush. Knuckles didn't give us any time to stop or look at the markings left behind by the civilization that was here long before us. We reached the opening of what I could only assume was a temple. He lit a lantern that was hanging inside then said:

"Listen up, it's dangerous in there and easy to get lost. Stay where I can see you and don't touch anything! Got it?"

"But you just touched the lantern!" Sonic complained. "Can I touch the floor?"

"If I could forbid you from touching the floor your damn right I would!" Knuckles retorted.

I set Junior and Queenie back in my pockets. Junior was keen on an adventure but Queenie was getting fussy.

Knuckles reached over and scooped Queenie up with a tired sigh. He led us into the dark interior of the temple as he muttered something about having to guide three helpless babies and a blue idiot into the most dangerous part of the island.

"Hey! I heard that!" I exclaimed.

He didn't bother to reply, but Sonic was eager to comment.

"Ha! He called you a helpless baby!" Sonic teased.

"What are you laughing about? He called you a blue idiot!" I retorted.

"I'd take blue idiot over helpless baby any day!"

"I'll show you helpless!" I lifted a fist.

Sonic started to laugh, "Okay, seriously! Where did this other Knuckles come from?"

As we walked deeper into the dark, the air felt colder and mustier. It felt gross to breath it in but I didn't dare complain and get left behind, or worse, get told to go back by myself. As a distraction, I decided to strike up a conversation with Sonic:

"Sonic, how come Tails didn't come along?"

"Oh, he's still getting the house bolted down, something about the Feng Shui… It was gonna take him too long to finish so I told him I'd pick you up."

"You didn't stay behind to help?"

"Naw, he says he gets the job done faster if he does it all himself."

"That sounds familiar…" Knuckles commented and sent me a sideways glance.

I scowled back at Knuckles but stayed as close behind him as I could. We walked further on until he stopped and I bumped into him. He looked back at me with annoyance and grunted, then he set the lantern down and knelt down to check on something, prompting Sonic to call out, "Hey, you said not to touch anything!"

Knuckles glared at Sonic and grumbled to himself, my eyes started to wander. Now that we were deeper into the ruins, I could see the intact hieroglyphs. I carefully traced my fingers along the chiseled lines and let my eyes study the images. One particular wall displayed what I thought might be the story of an old king, his image was carved into the stone, he stood tall and proud at his throne. His hand held a spear and the other was pointing out as if giving orders. I followed the direction he was pointing, there were guards carved on the walls who seemed to be doing the same. I almost reached the end of the image before Knuckles commented,

"If you wander out too far, I'm not going after you."

I huffed and went back. It was bold of me to assume he was going to let me have any fun.

Sonic commented, "Worst tour guide ever."

Knuckles finished his work and stood up, as he held the lantern in one hand and Queenie in the other.

"This might look like a fun adventure to you two!" Knuckles warned, "But these hallways are filled with traps that my ancestors set a long time ago. Every one of their traps was made to kill! There are places down here that even I haven't been to! So, keep your hands off the walls, stay close, and keep your mouths shut! Got it?"

Sonic rolled his eyes, "Ah, lighten up, Knucklehead! I've handled my fair share of trap dodging, you don't have to tell me twice!"

"Not like you've been listening anyways!" Knuckles huffed.

"Maybe if you added a 'yeehaw'?" I replied.

He turned to me with a glare as if to say 'you'd better shut your mouth before I shut it for you!' then proceeded to lead the way further down. The hallways were getting narrower and narrower and it was beginning to feel _very_ claustrophobic.

"Uh, Knuckles?" I asked.

"I'm not gonna say it!"

"Not that. How many of these traps of yours are we checking?"

"Oh, about fifty. But we'll reach the next one soon."

_FIFTY?! _I mentally groaned, _we're gonna be down here forever! _

"Why are there so many traps? What are you trying to catch?" I groaned.

"Thieves for the most part. I rotate the Master Emerald from place to place. It's never safe to keep it in one spot for too long so I'm going to move it down here. I just want to make sure all the traps are set first."

Knuckles set the lantern down again and knelt down to check on a trip wire he set, he pulled on it and a net snapped up from the floor. He chuckled.

"It still works like a charm! You wanna help me reset it?"

"Why'd you set it off in the first place?" Sonic remarked.

"How am I supposed to know it still works if I don't?"

"Fair enough." I shrugged and stepped forward to help him pick up the net.

"Cherry, hold still!" Knuckles warned.

I froze, did I walk into another trap? My eyes darted between him and Sonic nervously.

"Oh, nevermind." He stated casually and went back to work.

"What? What was it?"

"There's just a spider on your shoulder, I thought it was one of the poisonous ones."

"ACK!" I exclaimed and clamored to brush off the interloper. "WHY DIDN'T YOU GET IT OFF!?"

Sonic and Knuckles started to laugh.

I was finally able to remove the spider and I stomped on it for good measure. Junior, who was very excited by the whole scene, removed himself from my pocket and stomped on what was left of the spider with his tiny feet. He looked up at me, awaiting approval.

"Thanks buddy." I said, and he chirped excitedly in response.

Knuckles was still laughing away.

"You-! You should've seen the look on your face!" He exclaimed.

I bopped him on the head. "Shut up! It's not funny!"

"The way you screamed!" He howled.

"I said shut up!" I retorted and pulled at his dreads. Junior squeaked in excitement and started punching Knuckles' legs. "Get 'em, Junior! Get 'em!" I yelled.

"Ow! Ow! Hey!" He was still laughing but I was at least having an effect.

He grabbed my wrist but I punched him in the stomach (not too hard, but enough to send the message I wanted). Sonic was quick to snatch Junior from the scene so I could go full boar.

"Get 'em, Cherry! You show him who's boss!" Sonic cheered.

"Oh, it's a fight you want huh?" Knuckles growled and swiped at me.

"You can't hurt me! I know all your secrets!" I yelled out in the toughest voice I could manage.

Knuckles laughed and took another swipe at me; I side stepped out of the way and he tried again. Little Queenie was cheering him on as Sonic and Junior cheered for my side.

The battle went back and forth as we moved around, swiping and dodging. I thought I was holding up pretty well, until I lost my footing and slipped down into what I can only guess was a sand pit. I landed on my back with a loud "OOF!" and my arm took some of the impact too. That was enough excitement for one day.

"Cherry!" Sonic called. "You okay?"

Knuckles held the lantern over the opening of the pit but it was so deep he couldn't see me at the bottom.

"I'm okay!" I called back.

"Don't move from there! I'm gonna climb down to get you!" Knuckles exclaimed.

"Whoa! Hey!" I heard Sonic shout.

"No, not you!" Knuckles bellowed.

I could hear the sound of scuffling above me, mixed with indiscernible grunts and shouts from Sonic and Knuckles. All overshadowed by loud chirping.

"Everything okay up there?" I shouted back as I looked up at the opening.

Suddenly the chirping stopped. I was about to be concerned until something landed on my stomach. I looked to see what it was, if it was another spider I was going to die. Then I heard chirping.

"Junior?"

My question was followed by excited squeaking and snuggling. I was shook.

"Junior! You crazy baby! You absolute little mad-lad! Why'd you jump?"

It didn't take long for Knuckles to climb down. With the lantern's light, I could see he was not happy about Junior's courageous leap. He eyed the little chao with sternness then grumbled:

"You jump off a cliff for her? …Traitor."

Knuckles set the lantern into my hands. My eyes were drawn to the flicker of the walls that were covered in gold tiles that shined like fire.

"Hold onto the lantern and climb onto my back, I'll carry you back up!" Knuckles said hastily.

"Wait! But there's a whole other room down here!" I looked around at the splendor of the treasures and beautiful decorations all around the room. "Why can't we explore this for a little while?"

"Because this is the part of the ruins I told you about! The part we're not supposed to be in! Now hurry up or I'm leaving without you!"

I ignored his alarm and started walking further into the room to look at the various treasures arranged in niches all over the walls.

"Cherry!" He warned, "Get back here before you set something off!"

I looked him dead in the eye and slowly started moving my hands toward a golden vase in one of the niches, never breaking eye contact.

"Don't!" He shouted, "Don't you dare!"

I placed my hands on the vase and lifted it off its perch, my eyes still locked with his.

"CHERRY!" He stomped over, set the vase back down and scooped me up. "Do you want to get us killed?" He asked as he glared.

"We didn't die yet, did we?" I replied.

His initial nervousness subsided but the anger was still there, "If we don't get out of here soon…!"

"Knuckles! This is a chance to explore the coolest part of the island! The part that your ancestors worked so hard to build!"

"And to protect! They liked to make sure their treasures were safe. And right now, we're intruding!"

"How can you be an intruder in your own home?"

He looked toward the doorway at the end of the room.

"Heeeeey!" Sonic called from above. "You guys on your way up or what? It's dark up here…"

I could hear his foot tapping already.

"We're on our way." Knuckles bellowed back and set me down and I sighed heavily and climbed onto Knuckles' back so he could start climbing up the wall. He dug his spiked fists into the stone and carefully pulled himself up the wall. We were a quarter of the way to the top when Sonic asked:

"Uh… guys? Can ya climb a little faster?"

Knuckles grunted, "We can't _all _move as fast as you, hedgehog!"

"Tell that to Shadow! But what I'm trying to get at is things are getting a _little_ tight up here!"

"What do you mean by 'tight'?"

"I mean the walls are coming in."

I listened closer and could hear the low rumbling of the walls closing in above us.

"Sonic! Jump!" I exclaimed.

"What? No! Don't just-!" Knuckles protested but it was too late.

Sonic dived down into the pit, Knuckles and I reached out and caught him, but I used the wrong arm and felt something tear. I hissed at the pain but tried to stay strong like my friends. The opening above us closed.

We were all silent. Knuckles didn't move for a moment while Sonic dangled from our hands. Sonic was holding Queenie with one arm and holding on to us with the other. Knuckles' face looked intense in the light of the lantern; I think he was trying to process his shock without it becoming an outburst. He took a deep breath then looked down at Sonic.

"I'm gonna drop you down. Think you can land on your feet?"

"You're not callin' me heavy, are ya?" Sonic grinned.

Knuckles let go and we could hear the sound of his shoes tap against the stone floor below.

"All good down here!" He called up to us. "Feel free to drop, Cherry. I'll catch her."

"Let me try something first." Knuckles called back.

He climbed up to the top of the pit and inspected the wall that covered our previous entrance. He slammed his fist against it with a growl. A piece broke off and brushed past my head, I held onto Knuckles tighter as it fell and landed below with a clatter.

"Hey! Watch it!" Sonic remarked.

Knuckles looked over his shoulder, back at me.

"You okay?" He asked.

"Yeah. I think so."

"What about your arm?"

"I think it… Well, it hurts again but I think it'll be okay."

"Can you hold the lantern up? Maybe you'll see something I can't."

I held up the lantern to the ceiling and looked for any markings, holes or clues that could potentially get us out of here. I didn't find anything.

Knuckles grumbled, "Looks like you got your wish after all."

He slowly climbed down again, as he did so I saw a button on the wall that we must have pressed on our way up. I pushed it again with my foot to see if there was a reverse setting. Nothing happened.

"It was worth a shot." Knuckles commented.

As we settled back on the ground, Knuckles brushed himself off and took the lantern into his hand.

"Whatever happens, stay close and. Don't. Touch. Anything!"

I sighed and grumbled, "As if it was _my _fault I fell down here in the first place?"

. . .

Thank you for reading! I apologize for the wait; this chapter took longer to write than the others. The next chapters are going to take longer to write and post as well. Let me know what you thought about this chapter, I always appreciate feedback! :D


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